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﻿Title: Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. IV (of 8) - French Explorations and Settlements in North America and Those of the Portuguese, Dutch, and Swedes 1500-1700
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NARRATIVE AND CRITICAL HISTORY OF AMERICA
French Explorations and Settlements in North America
and Those of the Portuguese, Dutch, and Swedes 1500-1700
[Illustration]
NARRATIVE AND CRITICAL HISTORY OF AMERICA
Edited by
JUSTIN WINSOR
Librarian of Harvard University
Corresponding Secretary Massachusetts Historical Society
VOL. IV
Boston and New York
Houghton, Mifflin and Company
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
Copyright, 1884,
by James R. Osgood and Company.
All rights reserved.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
CONTENTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
[_The French arms on the title are those used by the Royal
Printing-Office in Paris in the Seventeenth Century._]
INTRODUCTION. PAGE PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NORTH AMERICA.
_Nathaniel S. Shaler_ i
CHAPTER I.
CORTEREAL, VERRAZANO, GOMEZ, THEVET. _George Dexter_ 1
ILLUSTRATION: Early Fishing Stages, 3.
CRITICAL ESSAY 12
ILLUSTRATION: The Verrazano map, 26.
AUTOGRAPHS: Francis I., 23; Janus Verrazanus, 25.
MAPS OF THE EASTERN COAST OF NORTH AMERICA, 1500-1535.
_The Editor_ 33
ILLUSTRATIONS: The Admiral’s map, 34; Portuguese Chart (1503),
35; Map of Lazaro Luis, 37; of Verrazano (1529), 37; of Ribero
(1529), 38; of Maiollo (1527), 39; of Agnese (1536), 40; of
Münster (1540), 41; Ulpius Globe (1542), 42; Carta Marina
(1548), 43; Lok’s Map (1582), 44; John White’s Map (1585), 45;
Map of North America (1532-1540), 46.
CHAPTER II.
JACQUES CARTIER AND HIS SUCCESSORS. _Benjamin F. De Costa_ 47
ILLUSTRATION: Jacques Cartier, 48.
AUTOGRAPHS: Jacques Cartier, 48; Henri the Dauphin, 56.
CRITICAL ESSAY 62
ILLUSTRATIONS: Maps of Allefonsce, 74, 75, 76, 77; of Des Liens
(1566), 78.
CARTOGRAPHY OF THE NORTHEAST COAST OF NORTH AMERICA. 1535-1600.
_The Editor_ 81
ILLUSTRATIONS: The Nancy Globe, 81; Ulpius Globe (1542), 82;
Maps of Rotz (1542), 83, 83; Cabot Mappemonde (1544), 84;
Münster’s Map (1545), 84; Map of Medina (1545), 85; of Henri II.
(1546), 85; of Freire (1546), 86; in British Museum, 87; of Nic.
Vallard, 87; of Gastaldi, 88; belonging to Jomard, 89; of
Bellero, 89; of Baptista Agnese (1544), 90; of Volpellio, 90;
of Gastaldi in Ramusio, 91; of Homem (1558), 92; of Ruscelli
(1561), 92; of Zaltieri (1566), 93; of Mercator (1569), 94;
of Ortelius (1570), 95; of Porcacchi (1572), 96; of Martines
(1578), 97; of Judæis (1593), 97; of John Dee (1580), 98; of De
Bry, (1596), 99; of Wytfliet, 100; of Quadus (1600), 101.
CHAPTER III.
CHAMPLAIN. _Edmund F. Slafter_ 103
ILLUSTRATIONS: Map of Port St. Louis, 109; of Tadoussac, 114;
of Quebec (1613), 115; of the St. Lawrence River (1609), 117;
View of Quebec, 118; Champlain, 119; Defeat of the Iroquois,
120; Champlain’s Route (1615), 125; Taking of Quebec (1629),
128.
AUTOGRAPHS: Champlain, 119; Montmagny, 130.
CRITICAL ESSAY 130
CHAPTER IV.
ACADIA. _Charles C. Smith_ 135
ILLUSTRATIONS: Sieur de Monts, 136; Isle de Sainte Croix, 137;
Buildings on the same, 139; Lescarbot’s Map of Port Royal,
140; Champlain’s Map of Port Royal, 141; Map of Gulf of Maine
(_circum_ 1610), 143; Buildings at Port Royal, 144; Map of
Pentagöet, 146; Sir William Phips, 147; Jesuit Map (1663), 148.
AUTOGRAPHS: Henry IV., 136; Razilly, 142; La Tour, 143;
D’Aulnay, 143; Robert Sedgwick, 145; John Leverett, 145; St.
Castine, 146.
CRITICAL ESSAY 149
ILLUSTRATIONS: Lescarbot’s Map of Acadia, 152; La Hontan’s Map
of Acadia, 153; Sir William Alexander, 156; Francis Parkman,
157.
AUTOGRAPH: Francis Parkman, 157.
NOTES. _The Editor_ 159
ILLUSTRATIONS: Map of Fort Loyal, 159; Map of Pemaquid, 160.
AUTOGRAPHS: De Meneval, 160; De Villebon, 160; Le Moyne
d’Iberville, 161.
CHAPTER V.
DISCOVERY ALONG THE GREAT LAKES. _Edward D. Neill_ 163
ILLUSTRATIONS: The Soleil, 192; its bottom, 193.
AUTOGRAPHS: Argenson, 168; Mézy, 172; Courcelle, 177;
Frontenac, 177; Henry de Tonty, 182.
CRITICAL ESSAY 196
EDITORIAL NOTE 198
ILLUSTRATION: Map of early French explorations, 200.
JOLIET, MARQUETTE, AND LA SALLE. _The Editor_ 201
ILLUSTRATIONS: Map of the Ottawa Route (1640-1650), 202;
Dollier and Galinée’s Explorations, 203; Lakes and the
Mississippi, 206; Joliet’s Map (1673-74), 208; Fac-simile of
Joliet’s Letter, 210; Joliet’s Larger Map (1674), 212, 213;
Joliet’s Smaller Map, 214; Basin of the Great Lakes, 215;
Joliet’s Carte Générale, 218; Marquette’s Genuine Map, 220;
Mississippi Valley (1672-73), 221; Fort Frontenac, 222; Map
by Franquelin (1682), 227; (1684), 228; (1688), 230-231; by
Coronelli et Tillemon (1688), 232; by Raffeix (1688), 233;
Ontario and Erie, by Raffeix (1688), 234; by Raudin, 235; La
Salle’s Camp, 236; Map by Minet (1685), 237; Murder of La
Salle, 243; Portrait of La Salle, 244.
AUTOGRAPHS: Joliet, 204; Raffeix, 232; De Beaujeu, 234; Le
Cavelier, 234.
FATHER LOUIS HENNEPIN. _The Editor_ 247
ILLUSTRATIONS: Niagara Falls, 248; Hennepin’s Map (1683), 249;
(1697), 251, 252-253; title of _New Discovery_, 256.
BARON LA HONTAN. _The Editor_ 257
ILLUSTRATIONS: La Hontan’s Map (1709), 258, 259; (1703), 260;
his Rivière Longue, 261.
CHAPTER VI.
THE JESUITS, RECOLLECTS, AND THE INDIANS. _John Gilmary Shea_ 263
ILLUSTRATIONS: Paul le Jeune, 272; Map of the Iroquois Country,
281.
AUTOGRAPHS: Trouvé, 266; Fremin, 268; Gabriel Druilletes, 270;
Bailloquet, 270; Albanel, 271; Dalmas, 271; Buteux, 271; Bigot,
273; De Noue, 273; Sébastien Rale, 273; Belmont, 275; Garnier,
276; Garreau, 277; Chabanel, 277; Gabriel Lalemant, 278;
Raymbault, 279; Claude Dablon, 280; Menard, 280; D’Ailleboust,
282; Lamberville, 285; Picquet, 285.
CRITICAL ESSAY 290
ILLUSTRATION: J. S. Clarke’s Map of the Mission Sites among the
Iroquois, 293.
THE JESUIT RELATIONS. _The Editor_ 295
ILLUSTRATIONS: A Canadian (_Creuxius_), 297; Map of Indian
Tribes in the Ohio Valley (1600), 298; Map of Montreal and
its Vicinity, 303; Map of the Site of Montreal (Lescarbot),
304; Map of the Huron Country, 305; Brebeuf, 307; Titlepage of
the _Relation_ of 1662-63, 310; The Forts on the Sorel River
(1662-63), 311; Map of Tracy’s Campaign (1666), 312; Jesuit Map
of Lake Superior, 312; Plans of the Forts, 313; Madame de la
Peltrie, 314.
AUTOGRAPHS: A. Carayon, 295; Lafitau, 298; Cadwallader Colden,
299; Bresani, 305; Gabriel Druilletes, 306; Ragueneau, 307;
Brebeuf, 307; Josephus Poncet, 308; Simon Le Moyne, 308;
Margaret Bourgeois, 309; Francois Evesque de Petrée, 309;
Menard, 309; Vignal, 310; Tracy, 311; Allouez, 311; Courcelle,
311; Le Mercier, 311; De Salignac, 312; Jacques Marquette, 313;
Claude Dablon, 313; L. Jolliet, 315; Bigot, 315; Chaumonot,
316; Jacques Gravier, 316; Marest, 316.
CHAPTER VII.
FRONTENAC AND HIS TIMES. _George Stewart, Jr._ 317
ILLUSTRATIONS: Early View of Quebec, 320; Canadian on Snow
Shoes, 331; Plan of Attack on Quebec (1690), 354.
AUTOGRAPHS: Louis XIV., 323; Frontenac, 326; Duchesneau, 334;
Seignelay, 337; Le Fèbre de la Barre, 337; De Meules, 337; De
Denonville, 343; Champigny, 346; Engelran, 348.
CRITICAL ESSAY 356
EDITORIAL NOTES 361
ILLUSTRATIONS: Quebec Medal, 361; Plan of Attack on Quebec
(1690), 362, 363; Canadian Soldier, 365.
AUTOGRAPHS: Monseignat, 364; Frontenac, 364; William Phips,
364; John Walley, 364; Thomas Savage, 364; S. Davis, 364;
Fitz-John Winthrop, 364; Philip Schuyler, 365; Ben. Fletcher,
365; De Courtemanche, 365; Colbert, 366.
GENERAL ATLASES AND CHARTS OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH
CENTURIES. _The Editor_ 369
ILLUSTRATIONS: Title of Wytfliet’s Atlas, 370; Gerard Mercator,
371; Abraham Ortelius, 372; Mercator’s Mappemonde (1569), 373.
AUTOGRAPHS: Gerardus Mercator, 371; Abraham Ortelius, 372.
MAPS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY SHOWING CANADA. _The Editor_ 377
ILLUSTRATIONS: Map of Molineaux (1600), 377; of Botero (1603),
378; Lescarbot’s Newfoundland (1609), 379; Map by Champlain
(1612), 380, 381; (1613), 382; by Jacobsz (1621), 383; by
Briggs (1625), 383; by Speed (1626), 384; by De Laet, 384; by
Jannson, 385; by Visscher, 385; by Champlain (1632), 386, 387;
by Dudley (1647), 388; by Creuxius (1660), 389; by Covens and
Mortier, 390; by Gottfried (1655), 390; by Sanson (1656), 391;
by Blaeu (1662), 391; in Ogilby’s America (1670), 392, 393; in
Campanius (1702), 394.
CHAPTER VIII.
NEW NETHERLAND, OR THE DUTCH IN NORTH AMERICA.
_Berthold Fernow_ 395
AUTOGRAPHS: Peter Minuet, 398; Julian Van Rensselaer, 400; W.
van Twiller, 401; P. Stuyvesant, 406; A. Colve, 409.
CRITICAL ESSAY 409
ILLUSTRATIONS: Ribero’s Map (1529), 413; Dutch Vessels (1618),
415; The Figurative Map (1616), 433; De Laet’s Map (1630), 436;
Visscher’s Map, 438; Van der Donck’s Map (1656), 438.
AUTOGRAPHS: Johan De Laet, 417; Adrian Van der Donck, 419;
Johannes Megapolensis, 420; Isaac Jogues, 421; Cornelis Melyn,
425.
EDITORIAL NOTES 439
ILLUSTRATION: Map of New York and Vicinity (1666), 440.
AUTOGRAPHS: Everhard Bogardus, 441; Willem Kieft, 441.
CHAPTER IX.
NEW SWEDEN, OR THE SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE. _Gregory B. Keen_ 443
ILLUSTRATIONS: Visscher’s Map (1651), 467; Trinity Fort, 473;
Siege of Christina Fort, 480; Lindström’s Map (1654-55), 481;
Map of Atlantic Colonies (_Campanius_), 485.
AUTOGRAPHS: Willem Usselinx, 443; Gustavus Adolphus, 444; Axel
Oxenstjerna, 444; S. Blommaert, 445; Peter Spiring, 445; Peter
Minuit, 446; Clas Fleming, 447; Queen Christina, 448; Hendrick
Huygen, 448; J. Beier, 449; Peter Hollender, Ridder, 449; Johan
Printz, 452; Sven Schute, 454; Gregorious Van Dyck, 454; Peter
Brahe, 458; Johan Papegåja, 458; A. Hudde, 461; Laurentz, 464;
Hans Amundson, 465; Hans Kramer, 469; Gustaf Printz, 470; Erik
Oxenstjerna, 471; Johan Rising, 471; Christer Bonde, 471;
Thijssen Anckerhelm, 472; Peter Lindström, 472; Sven Höök, 475;
Henrich von Elswich, 475; King Carl Gastaff, 477; Jöran Fleming,
477.
CRITICAL ESSAY 488
ILLUSTRATIONS: Title of _Manifest und Vertragbrieff_ (1624),
489; Title of Campanius (1702), 492.
INDEX 503
INTRODUCTION.
PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NORTH AMERICA.
BY NATHANIEL S. SHALER,
_Professor of Palæontology in Harvard University._
Part I.
PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NORTH AMERICA.
THE continents of the earth have two distinct types of form,—the
one regular, symmetrical, triangular in outline; the other without
these regularities of shape. To the first of these groups belong the
continents of Africa and Australia of the Old World, and the two
Americas of the New; to the second, the massive continent of Europe
and Asia. Some have sought to reduce the continent of Asia to the same
type as that of the other continents; but a glance at a map of the
hemispheres will show how different is this Indo-European continent
from the other land-masses.
These general features of the continents are not only of scientific
interest; they are of the utmost importance to the history of man’s
development upon these several lands. It is not without meaning,
that, while man has existed for a great length of time upon all the
continents, the only original civilizations that have been developed
have been on the lands of the Indo-European continent. Working on
several different lines of advance, several diverse races—Aryan,
Semitic, Chinese, and perhaps others—have risen from the common plane
of barbarism, and have created complicated social systems, languages,
literatures, and arts; while on the four other continents, despite
their great area, greater fertility, and wider range of physical
conditions, no race has ever had a native development to be compared
with that undergone by the several successful races of Asia and
Europe.[1]
In this great Old-World continent there are many highly individualized
areas, each separated from the rest of the continent by strong
geographical barriers; it has a dozen or so of great peninsulas upon
its seaboard, many great islands off its shores, and the interior of
the land is divided into many separated regions by mountain ridges
or by deserts. It is a land where man necessarily fell into variety,
because of the isolation that the geography gave. If we look at the
other continents,—namely, the Americas, Africa, and Australia,—we
find that they want this varied and detailed structure. They each
consist of a great triangular mass, with scanty subordinate divisions.
In all of them put together there are not so many great peninsulas as
there are in Europe. If we exclude those that are within the Arctic
Circle, there are but few on the four regular continents, none of which
compare in size or usefulness to man with the greater peninsulas of
the Old World. The only one of value is that of Nova Scotia, in North
America.
These regular continents are all in the form of triangles, with their
apices pointing towards the southern pole. Near either long shore lie
the principal mountain systems that give definition to the coast line.
The middle portion of each continent is generally a region of plain,
somewhat diversified by lesser mountain systems. Along either shore
is a narrow fringe of plain land to the east and west of the main
mountain chains. Near the northern part of the continent, and aiding to
define the base of the triangle, there is another system of mountains
having a general east and west course. With the exception of North
America, none of these regular continents have seas inclosed within
their areas,—such bodies of water as form so striking a feature in the
Asiatic continent, which is indeed a land of mediterranean seas.
In a word, these continents are characteristically as simple as the
Asiatic continent is varied. Their mass is undivided, and their organic
or human histories are necessarily less diversified than in such a
land-mass as Asia.
The continent of North America is, of all the triangular continents,
the most nearly akin in its structure to the great Old-World land.
In the first place, it is the only one of these continents that has
the same general conditions of climate; then it has a far greater
diversity of form than the similar masses of South America, Africa, and
Australia. North America has several considerable seas inclosed within
its limits or bordering upon its shores; its mountain systems are more
varied in their disposition than in the other regular continents. So
that in a way this continent in its structure lies intermediate between
the Asiatic type and what is considered the normal form of continents.
Although this varied structure of the continent of North America makes
it more fit for the uses of man than the continents of Africa, South
America, and Australia, there are certain considerable disadvantages
in its physical conditions. To show the relation of these evil and
fortunate features, it will be necessary for us to consider the general
geography of the continent somewhat in detail.
The point of first importance concerns the distribution of heat and
moisture over the surface of the land; for on these features depends
the fitness of the land for all forms of life. The influences which
principally determine the climate of a continent come to it from the
neighboring seas. The moisture arises there, and finds its way thence
to the land; and the heat or coolness which modifies the land climate
comes with it.
North America faces three oceans. On the north is the extremely cold
Arctic Sea, mostly covered by enduring ice: it is the extreme coldness
of this sea, and its ice-clad character near the continent of America,
that in good part causes the great severity of its winters. Where the
Arctic Sea lies against Europe and Asia it is partly warmed by the Gulf
Stream, and so is not completely ice-bound even in winter; but that
part of it which lies near the northern coast of America is ice-bound
the whole year, and the winds that come from it are many degrees below
those that come over open water.
Both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans send streams of warm water against
the American coast. But the Gulf Stream has actually very little direct
effect upon our climate; it only touches the coast about the Gulf of
Mexico, where the temperature is naturally so high that its warming
power is not felt. It then leaves our coast, to give its warmth to the
shores of Europe and to the European part of the Arctic Ocean. The
Pacific current corresponding to the Gulf Stream is feebler than the
Atlantic current, and sends its tide of waters against the northwest
shore of America. Its effects on that coast are very noticeable; but
they are limited, by the geography of that shore, within narrow bounds.
In the first place, the passage of Behring’s Strait is too small to
permit its waters to have access to the Arctic Sea; then the high
ranges of the Cordilleras fence off the interior of the continent, so
that the warm winds that blow from the sea cannot penetrate far to
the east. Confined to the shore, the heat of the Pacific Gulf Stream
generates a large amount of fog; this fog shuts off the sun’s rays, and
so lowers the temperature almost as much as the current itself serves
to raise it.
The distribution of moisture over the surface of the continent is
effected in much the same way as is the distribution of heat. The Gulf
Stream gives an abundant rainfall to the States about the Gulf of
Mexico lying to the north of that basin; its effects on the rainfall
are seen even as far north as the New England States, but they have
little effect to the west of the Mississippi River. The high mountains
of the Cordilleras cut off the Pacific winds from the centre of the
continent, so that very little of the water which flows down to the
Gulf of Mexico or to the Atlantic is derived from the Pacific. From the
general conditions thus rudely outlined the following arrangement of
climates arises. The northern half of the continent is more completely
under the dominion of the Arctic Sea than any part of Europe or Asia;
the only parts of it fit for the use of civilized man are the northern
watershed of the St. Lawrence, the valley of Lake Winnipeg and the
Saskatchewan, and the west-coast region as far north as Alaska. The
rest of the northern part of the continent is practically barred out
from the life of the race by the intensity of the winter cold, and by
the brevity of the summer season.
South of this domain of northern cold, North America divides itself,
by its climate, soil, and topographical reliefs, into the following
fairly distinct regions: (1) The eastern lowlands lying between the
shore and the Appalachian range; these shade southwardly into (2) the
lowlands of the Gulf States, which is the only part of North America
in the immediate control of the Gulf Stream. These Gulf lowlands
pass northwardly into (3) the great plain of the Mississippi Valley.
Between these lowlands of the centre of the continent and the Atlantic
sea-coast lie (4) the table-lands and mountains of the Appalachian
system. West of the Mississippi Valley lie (5) the region of the
Cordilleras of North America; and finally on the western shore we find
(6) a narrow region of low mountains, forming a slender fringe of
shorelands.
The mountains of the Appalachian system are composed of two parallel
series of elevations, an old eastern range of peaks which are worn
down to mere shreds; so that in place of being as high as the Alps, as
they once were, they have no peaks that rise seven thousand feet above
the sea. This outer range is traceable from Newfoundland to Alabama;
but it only rises above six thousand feet in the White Mountains of
New Hampshire and the Black Mountains of North Carolina. In form these
mountains are steep and rugged. Their steep sides hold the little
untillable land that exists east of the Mississippi; their actual area
is small, for the chain is very narrow, not exceeding a score or so of
miles in width, except in the Carolinas and in the White Mountains,
where it is somewhat wider. The total untillable area in this chain
does not exceed twelve thousand square miles. West of this, the old
Appalachian mountain system, separated from it by a broad, elevated,
somewhat mountainous valley, lies the newer Alleghany range. This
valley intermediate is one of the most fertile and admirably situated
in the world; it extends from New Jersey to Georgia, with an average
width of about forty miles and a length of about six hundred, having an
area of over twenty thousand square miles. The Alleghany Mountains on
the west are composed principally of round, symmetrical ridges, often
like gigantic works of art, so uniform are their arches; none of them
rise to more than five thousand feet above the sea, and their surfaces
are so little broken that they generally afford tillable though as yet
generally untilled land. Practically no part of this great range, which
extends from near Albany to Alabama, is completely unfit for the uses
of man, and it includes some of the most fertile valleys of America.
The most important feature connected with this double mountain system
of the Appalachians is the great area of table-lands which it upholds;
these bordering uplands are found all around the mountain system.
The greater part of the States of New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia,
West Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio
owe the considerable elevation of their surfaces to the table-land
elevations bordering the Appalachian mountain system. Taken altogether,
this mountain system is perhaps the finest region for the uses of man
that the world affords; its great length, of more than fifteen hundred
miles from north to south, gives it a range of climate such as would be
had in Europe by a mountain chain extending from Copenhagen to Rome.
The total area of this Appalachian district, mountains as well as
table-lands, is about three hundred thousand square miles. This is an
area equal to near thrice the surface of Great Britain.
The Appalachian table-lands fade gradually into the Mississippi Valley.
Their distinct character continues to near the borders of that stream
where it unites with the Ohio. As we come upon the table-land system of
the Cordilleras, soon after we pass west of the Mississippi, this great
valley may be considered as made up of the table-lands of two great
mountain systems, with only a relatively small area of alluvial matter
between the mouth of the Ohio and the Gulf. Unlike the Ganges, the
Amazon, and most other great rivers of the first class, the Mississippi
River has a small delta section: not over twenty to thirty thousand
square miles has this character. By far the greater part of the basin
is really table-land, and is thus free from the evil of low countries
to a degree equalled by no other very great river basin. Its valley
is characteristically a table-land valley, with a general surface of
rolling plain, varying from three hundred to five thousand feet above
the level of the sea. Outside of the Cordilleras and the Appalachians,
this valley has few mountain folds within its ample space. The absence
of included mountain systems is almost as noteworthy a feature as the
small amount of delta. There are only two or three patches of mountains
that lie far beyond the limits of the great mountain systems of the
east and west; and only one of these, the Ozark Mountains of Missouri
and Arkansas, is at any distance from the main ranges. This is an
insignificant group of low hills having considerable geological but no
geographical importance.
On the western border of the Mississippi Valley rise the vast ridges
of the Cordilleras. This great mountain region is, next after the
mountainous area of Central Asia, the most extensive region of great
altitude in the world. From Mexico northward this system of mountains
widens, until, in the parallel of forty degrees, it has a width of
about one thousand miles. This system is made up of many ridges lying
upon an elevated table-land. The valleys of the lesser streams are
generally over seven thousand feet above the sea; the main peaks, to
the number of many hundred, rise over twelve thousand feet above the
sea level; many of them attain to about fourteen thousand feet of
altitude. Its table-land extends east to near the Mississippi River.
The great height and width of this mountain system produce a very
marked effect upon the climate of the vast area that it incloses, and
upon the country which lies within a thousand miles to the east of
its mountain walls. The winds from the Pacific are to a great extent
drained of their moisture in the western or Sierra Nevada section of
these mountains, and have little moisture to give to the central and
eastern chains; and when these winds emerge on to the western plains,
they are as dry as those that blow over the Sahara.
Although these Cordilleras of North America afford access by their
dislocations to a great supply of mineral substances, they are on the
whole a curse to the continent. By the cold and dryness which their
height entails, they reduce one third of the continent to sterility.
Though here and there in their valleys we find oases of fertile
land, and many regions of limited area may be made fertile by the
use of irrigation, at least nineteen-twentieths of their lands are
irretrievably barren. When their resources of precious metals are
exhausted, as is likely to be the case within a hundred years, they
will probably be to a great extent abandoned by man. Only the extreme
northern section and a part of the central and border lands afford any
other attractions to settlers than is found in their mineral wealth.
West of the Cordilleras of North America we have a narrow and
mountainous coast region that is abundantly watered by the moisture
from the Pacific, which penetrates some distance into the land over the
lower ridges that border on them. Although this belt of fertile country
cannot be compared in populationsustaining power with the Atlantic
coast region, it is of great fertility, and has a climate of surpassing
excellence.
On the borders of Mexico, within the limits of the United States,
the mountains sink down to much less extreme heights, and the
climate becomes less strenuous. This region is better fitted for the
permanent occupation of man; but only a small part of the land is
arable,—probably not one-tenth of its surface is or ever will be fit
for the plough.
In Mexico proper we have a country that retains the character of
the Cordilleras so far as its general elevation is concerned, but
loses the lofty ridges which we find farther to the north. The loss
of these barriers, combined with the narrowing of the space between
the Atlantic and the Pacific waters, and its more southern position,
increases the temperature and the rainfall; so that the fertility of
the country augments in a rapid way as we go southwards, until finally
in the isthmic part of the continent we have a tropical luxuriance of
life. The lowland borders of the country gain upon the width of the
table-land, until south of the Tehuantepec Isthmus the whole region is
essentially unfit for the uses of our race.
The climate of North America south of the divide which separates the
streams flowing toward the Arctic Circle from those entering the
Atlantic south of Labrador may be said to resemble that of Europe in
all important respects. The winters are far colder; but the summer
seasons, which determine the usefulness of the soil to man, are as
warm and quickening to plants as are those of the Old World. The more
considerable cold of winter is a disadvantage, inasmuch as it limits
the work of agriculture to a smaller part of the year, and requires a
greater expense in the keeping of livestock. This is a considerable
evil, especially in the regions north of the parallel of forty degrees;
but the cold is not greater than in Northern Germany or in Scotland.
There can be no doubt that the body and the mind receive certain
advantages from the tonic quality of the winters which compensate for
this loss.
Nearly the whole of North America that is within the limits of the
United States receives some share of frost. This secures it against the
permanent occupation of contagious fevers, which from time to time find
their way to it from the tropics.
North America, east of the 100th meridian (west of Greenwich) and north
of thirty-five degrees, has a soil which is on the whole superior to
that of Europe. Practically the whole of this vast area is tillable,
and the variety of crops is very great, considerably greater than
that of Europe. West of the 100th meridian the rainfall diminishes
rapidly, being especially limited in the summer season. The winters
become longer and more extreme throughout all the region within or
under the climatic influence of the Cordilleras; the soil is thinner,
and over vast regions almost wanting. In certain exceptional tracts as
far westward as the Saskatchewan, and at points along the line between
the United States and Canada to the south of that valley, there are
considerable areas of good soil; but, considered in a general way, we
may exclude all the region between the 100th meridian and the Sierra
Nevada range from the hope of any great agricultural future. Even
should the rainfall be increased by tree-planting in those regions
where trees may grow, the quality of the soil in this district, even
where soil exists, is often too poor for any use. Yet in some parts it
is very good, and if tree-planting should increase the rainfall, some
limited areas will be tillable.
Next to the quality of the soil, the forest covering of a country does
the most to determine its uses to man. Although the Western prairies
have the temporary advantage that they are more readily brought under
cultivation than wooded regions, the forests of a land contribute so
largely to man’s well-being, that without them he can hardly maintain
the structure of his civilization. The distribution of American forests
is peculiar. All the Appalachian mountain system and the shore region
between that system and the sea, as well as the Gulf border as far
west as the Mississippi, were originally covered by the finest forest
that has existed in the historical period, outside of the tropics.
In the highlands south of Pennsylvania and in the western table-land
north to the Great Lakes, this forest was generally of hard-wood or
deciduous trees; on the shore-land and north of Pennsylvania in the
highlands, the pines and other conifers held a larger share of the
surface. The parts of the land bordering the Mississippi on the west,
as far as the central regions of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri,
are forest clad. Michigan and portions of Wisconsin and Minnesota have
broad areas of forests, but the cis-Mississippian States of Indiana
and Illinois, and the trans-Mississippian country west to the Sierra
Nevada, is only wooded, and that generally scantily, along the borders
of the streams. Data for precise statements are yet wanting, but there
is no doubt that this area is untimbered over about seven eighths of
its surface, and the wood which exists has a relatively small value for
constructive purposes. North of the regions described, except along
the Pacific coast, where fine soft-wood forests extend from near San
Francisco to Alaska, the forest growth rapidly diminishes in size,
and therefore in value, the trees becoming short and gnarled, and the
kinds of wood inferior. So that the region north of the St. Lawrence
and of the Great Lakes is not to be regarded as having any very great
value from the forest resources it affords. In estimating the value
of North America to man, the limitation of good forests to the region
east of the Mississippi must be regarded as a disadvantage which is
likely to become more serious with the advance of time. Undoubtedly the
timberless character of the prairie country for at least two hundred
miles west of the Mississippi is in the main due to the constant
burning over of the surface by the aborigines. It seems possible that
these regions may yet be made to bear extensive woods. The elevated
plains that lie farther to the west seem to have too little rainfall
for the support of forests.
The rivers of a country are a result and a measure of its climate.
The generally large rainfall of the eastern half of North America is
shown by the number and size of its streams, which, area for area,
are longer and more frequent than those of the Old World, except on
the eastern coast of Asia. The heaviest rainfall and the greatest
average of streams is found about the Gulf of Mexico and the southern
part of the Appalachian district. Hence, northerly, westerly, and
northwesterly, the rainfall decreases in amount. The average of the
region east of the Mississippi and south of the Laurentian Mountains
is probably about fifty inches per annum, somewhere near one-third
more than that of Europe. North America, despite the very dry district
of the Cordilleras, has an average rainfall about as great as that of
Europe, and probably rather greater than Asia; indeed its water-supply
is rather greater than the average for lands situated so far from the
equator.
The rivers of America have been of very great importance in the
settlement of the land. They afford more navigable waters than all the
streams of Asia put together. Without the system of the Mississippi,
which has more navigable waters than any river except the Amazons, it
would not have been possible for America to have been brought under the
control of colonies with such speed.
The elevation of the surface of North America, at least of its more
habitable portions, is very favorable to man. A large part of its
fertile soils lie from five hundred to fifteen hundred feet above the
sea. It has a larger part of its surface within the limits of height
that are best suited to the uses of man than Asia, but less than Europe
has.
In considering the fitness of this continent for the use of European
races, it will not do to overlook the mineral resources of the country.
It may be stated in general terms that North America is richer in the
mineral substances which have most contributed to the development
of man than any other continent. The precious metals may be briefly
dismissed. They occur constantly in two areas: the Cordilleran,—which,
from Mexico, California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado, has
doubtless furnished more gold and silver than any other one mountain
district,—and the Appalachian region, which has given about sixty
million dollars to the world’s store of gold. The precious mineral
resources of the Cordilleran region are probably greater than those of
any other continent. They have already exercised a very great influence
on the commercial and political history of the continent, and are
likely to become of more importance as time goes on, for at least half
a century to come.
In the so-called baser, yet really more precious, metals this continent
is even more fortunate. The supplies in the most important metal,
iron, are very great,—certainly greater than in Europe. This metal is
distributed with much uniformity over the country, there being scarcely
a State except Florida that cannot claim some share of this metal.
Especially rich in deposits of this metal are the States which share
the Appalachian district, and the States of Missouri and Michigan. The
Rocky Mountains also abound in iron ores, which there often contain a
certain proportion of the precious metals; so that it is possible that
the exploitation of the two metals may in time be carried on there
together. There is probably no other continent that contains as large a
share of iron,—the most important metal for the uses of man.
The other less used, but still commercially important, metals,—zinc,
lead, and copper,—are found in considerable abundance in the
Appalachian, the Laurentian, and the Cordilleran regions, especially in
the last-named district. The only metal that is rarely found in North
America, never yet in quantities of economic importance, is tin. Some
specimens of bronze implements have been found in Mexico and Peru. They
seem to afford the only evidence that the aboriginal peoples knew how
to smelt any metals. Though the natives in the more northern districts
used copper, they never discovered the art of smelting it.
Considering the useful metals as a whole, North America is
proportionally richer than any other country that is well known to us.
The most considerable of the resources that the rocks of America offer,
are found in the deposits of coal which they contain. These deposits
are of vast extent, and are excellently fitted for the various uses of
this fuel. While the other mineral resources of the country are most
abundant in the region of the Cordilleras, the best of these deposits
of coal are accumulated in and about the Appalachian district. At least
nine tenths of the coal of America lies to the east of the Mississippi
River. New England, New York, South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi,
and Louisiana are the only States that are practically without coal;
and even in New England, Rhode Island and the neighboring parts of
Massachusetts have promising but essentially undeveloped fields. In
the Cordilleran district coal deposits of small area occur; but the
material is generally of poor quality, and is not likely to have a
great utility.
As a whole, the resources in the way of subterranean fuel are far
richer on this continent than in Europe. The area of coal-bearing rocks
is at least eight times as great, and the deposits are much better
disposed for working. No other continent save Asia is likely to develop
anything like these coal resources; in China the coal area seems much
larger than that of North America, but the richness of the field has
not yet been fully proven: it is, however, undoubtedly great.
As the latent power of any modern society depends in an intimate way
upon the buried stores of solar energy in coal-beds, the large area and
good quality of the American coal-fields are very important advantages,
and are full of promise for the economic future of its people.
Among the less important resources of the rocks in North America are
the various classes of coal-oils which were first brought into commerce
from its fields. Although these oils are not peculiar to North America,
the small amount of disruption which its rocks have undergone have
caused them to be retained in the subterranean store-houses; while in
other countries, where the rocks have been more disturbed, these oils
have been allowed to escape to the streams or the air. The areas where
these oils occur on the continent are widely scattered. They are,
however, principally confined to the Upper Ohio Valley; they are known
to exist also in the Valley of the Cumberland River, in California,
and in Western Canada north of Lake Erie. Besides these flowing oils
there are immense areas of black shales, which yield large quantities
of oil to distillation. These are not now of value, on account of
the abundance of these flowing oils; but as in the immediate future
these flowing wells are likely to cease their production, we may look
to these shales for an almost indefinite supply of oil. In the Ohio
Valley, extending eastward in Virginia into the valleys of the Atlantic
streams, there is an area of over one hundred thousand square miles
of this shale, which is on the average over one hundred and fifty
feet thick, and yields about ten per cent of oil. In other words, it
is equal to a lake of oil as large as New York and Pennsylvania, and
fifteen feet deep,—a practically unlimited source of this material.
It is important to note that the sources of supply of phosphate and
alkaline marls are very large. As these substances are subject to
a constant waste in agriculture, and are the most important of all
materials to the growth of the standard crops, the soil of America
promises on the whole to be as enduring as is that of Europe, though,
owing to the larger rainfall, it tends to waste away more rapidly.
The building stones of a country are of importance, inasmuch as they
affect the constructions of a people; in such materials, suited for
the purposes of simple strength and durability, the country is very
well supplied, being quite as well off as Europe. On the other hand,
the stones that lend themselves to the more decorative uses, the pure
white or variegated marbles, are not nearly as rich as the countries
about the Mediterranean, which is of all known regions the richest in
decorative stones.
It is not possible within the limits of this chapter to support by
sufficient details the foregoing statements concerning the physical
conditions of America. The necessary brevity of the work has made it
difficult to find place for all the points that should be presented; it
may be fairly said, however, that the statements as made are to a very
great extent matters of general information, which lie beyond the scope
of debate, being well known to all students of American physiography.
Accepting the foregoing statements as true, it may be fairly owned
that the general physical conditions of the American continent closely
resemble those of Europe, and that in all the more important matters
our race gained rather than lost by its transfer from the Old World to
the New.
Part II.
EFFECT OF THE PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NORTH AMERICA ON MEN OF EUROPEAN ORIGIN.
In their organic life the continents of America have always stood
somewhat apart from those of the Old World. This isolation is marked in
every stage of their geological history. In each geological period they
have many forms that never found their way to the other lands, and we
fail to find there many species that are abundant in the continents of
the Old World.
The same causes that kept the animal and vegetable life of the Americas
distinct from Europe and Asia have served to keep those continents
apart from the human history of the Old World. Something more than
the relations that are patent on a map are necessary to a proper
understanding of the long continued isolation of these continents.
In the first place, we may notice the fact that from the Old World
the most approachable side of these continents lies on the west. Not
only are the lands of the New and Old World there brought into close
relations to each other, but the ocean streams of the North Pacific
flow toward America. Moreover the North Pacific is a sea of a calmer
temper than the North Atlantic, and the chance farers over its surface
would be more likely to survive its perils. In the North Atlantic,
over which alone the Aryan peoples could well have found their way to
America, we have a wide sea, which is not only the stormiest in the
world, but its currents set strongly against western-going ships, and
the prevailing winds blow from the west.[2] If it had been intended
that America should long remain unknown to the seafaring peoples of
Semitic or Aryan race, it would not have been easy, within the compass
of earthly conditions, to accomplish it in a more effective manner than
it has been done by the present geography.
The result is that man, who doubtless originated in the Old World,
early found his way to America by the Pacific; and all the so-called
indigenous races known to us in the Americas seem to have closer
relations to the peoples living in northern Asia than to those of any
other country. It is pretty clear that none of the aboriginal American
peoples have found their way to these continents by way of the Atlantic.
Although the access to the continent of North America is much more
easily had upon its western side, and though all the early settlements
were probably made that way, the configuration of the land is such
that it is not possible to get easy access to the heart of the
continent from the Pacific shore. So that although the Atlantic Ocean
was most forbidding and difficult as a way to America, once passed,
it gave the freest and best access to the body of the continent. In
the west, the Cordilleras are a formidable bar to those who seek to
enter the continent from the Pacific. None but a modern civilization
would ever have forced its barriers of mountains and of deserts. An
ancient civilization, if it had penetrated America from the west,
would have recoiled from the labor of traversing this mountain
system, that combines the difficulties of the Alps and the Sahara. If
European emigration had found such a mountain system on the eastern
face of the continent, the history of America would have been very
different. Scarcely any other continent offers such easy ingress as
does this continent to those who come to it from the Atlantic side.
The valleys of the St. Lawrence, the Hudson, the Mississippi, in a
fashion also of the Susquehanna and the James, break through or pass
around the low-coast mountains, and afford free ways into the whole of
the interior that is attractive to European peoples. No part of the
Alleghanian system presents any insuperable obstacles to those who seek
to penetrate the inner lands. The whole of its surface is fit for human
uses; there are neither deserts of sand nor of snow. The axe alone
would open ways readily passable to men and horses. So that when the
early settlers had passed the sea, all their formidable geographical
difficulties were at an end,—with but little further toil the wide
land lay open to them. I propose in the subsequent pages to give a
sketch of the physical conditions of this continent, with reference
to the transplanted civilization that has developed upon its soil. It
will be impossible, within the limits of this essay, to do more than
indicate these conditions in a very general way, for the details of the
subject would constitute a work in itself. It will be most profitable
for us first to glance at the general relations of climate and soil
that are found in North America, so far as these features bear upon the
history of the immigration it has received from Europe.
The climate of North America south of the Laurentian Mountains and
east of the Rocky Mountains is much more like that of Europe than of
any we find in the other continents. Although there are many points
of difference, these variations lie well within the climatic range
of Europe itself. On the south, Mexico may well be compared to Italy
and Spain; in the southern parts of the Mississippi Valley we have
conditions in general comparable to those of Lombardy and Central
France; and in the northern portions of that area and along the
sea-border we can find fair parallels for the conditions of Great
Britain, Germany, or Scandinavia. As is well known, the range of
temperature during the year varies much more in America than in Europe,
but these variations in themselves are of small importance. Man in
a direct way is not much affected by temperature; his elastic body,
helped by his arts, may within certain limits neglect this element of
climate. The real question is how far these temperatures affect the
products of the soil upon which his civilization depends. In the case
of most plants and domestic animals, their development depends more
upon the summer temperature, or that of the spring season, than upon
the winter climate. Now the summer climates of America are more like
those of Europe than are those of the winter. So the new-won continent
offered to man a chance to rear all the plants and animals which he had
brought to domesticity in the Old World.
The general character of the soil of North America is closely
comparable with that of Europe, yet it has certain noteworthy
peculiarities. In the first place, there is a larger part of America
which has been subjected to glacial action than what we find in Europe.
In Europe, only the northern half of Great Britain, the Scandinavian
peninsulas, a part of Northern Germany, and the region of Switzerland
were under the surface of the glaciers during the last glacial period.
In America, practically all the country north of the Susquehanna,
and more than half of the States north of the Ohio, had their soils
influenced by this ice period. The effects of glaciation on the soils
of the region where it has acted are important. In the first place,
the soils thus produced are generally clayey and of a rather stubborn
nature, demanding much care and labor to bring them into a shape for
the plough. The surface is usually thickly covered with stones, which
have to be removed before the plough can be driven. I have estimated
that not less than an average of thirty days’ labor has been given to
each acre of New England soil to put it into arable condition after
the forest has been removed; nearly as much labor has to be given to
removing the forest and undergrowth: so that each cultivated acre in
this glacial region requires about two months’ labor before it is
in shape for effective tillage.[3] When so prepared, the soils of
glaciated districts are of a very even fertility. They hold the same
character over wide areas, and their constitution is the same to great
depths. Though never of the highest order of fertility, they remain
for centuries constant in their power. I have never seen a worn-out
field of this sort. Another peculiarity of the American soils is the
relatively large area of limestone lands which the country affords.
America abounds in deposits of this nature, which produce soils of
the first quality, extremely well fitted to the production of grass
and grains. Although statistical information is not to be obtained on
such a matter, I have no doubt, after a pretty close scrutiny of both
America and Europe, that the original fertility of America was greater
than that of Europe; but that, on the whole, the regions first settled
by Europeans were much more difficult to subdue than the best lands of
Central and Southern Europe had been.[4]
The foregoing statement needs the following qualification: Owing to the
relative dryness and heat of the American summer, the forests are not
so swampy as they are in Northern Europe, and morasses are generally
absent. It required many centuries of continued labor to bring the
surface of Northern Germany, Northern France, and of Britain into
conditions fit for tillage.
Next to deserts and snowy mountains, swamps are the greatest barriers
to the movements of man. If the reader will follow the interesting
account of the Saxon Conquest given in Mr. Green’s volume on _The
Making of England_, he will see how the tracts of marsh and marshy
forest served for many centuries to limit the work of subjugation.
In America there are no extensive bogs or wet forests in the upland
district, south of the St. Lawrence, except in Maine and in the British
Provinces. In all other districts fire or the axe can easily bring the
surface into a shape fit for cultivation. In taking an account of the
physical conditions which formed the subjugation of North America by
European colonies, we must give a large place to this absence of upland
swamps and the dryness of the forests, which prevented the growth of
peaty matter within their bounds.
The success of the first settlements in America was also greatly aided
by the fact that the continent afforded them a new and cheaper source
of bread, in the maize or Indian corn which was everywhere used by the
aborigines of America. It is difficult to convey an adequate impression
of the importance of this grain in the early history of America. In
the first place, it yields not less than twice the amount of food per
acre of tilled land, with much less labor than is required for an acre
of small grains; it is far less dependent on the changes of seasons;
the yield is much more uniform than that of the old European grains;
the harvest need not be made at such a particular season; the crops
may with little loss be allowed to remain ungathered for weeks after
the grain is ripe; the stalks of the grain need not be touched in the
harvesting, the ears alone being gathered; these stalks are of greater
value for forage than is the straw of wheat and other similar grains.
Probably the greatest advantage of all that this beneficent plant
afforded to the early settlers was the way in which it could be planted
without ploughing, amid the standing forest trees which had only been
deadened by having their bark stripped away by the axe. This rough
method of tillage was unknown among the peoples of the Old World. None
of their cultivated plants were suited to it; but the maize admitted
of such rude tillage. The aborigines, with no other implements than
stone axes and a sort of spade armed also with stone, would kill the
forest trees by girdling or cutting away a strip around the bark. This
admitted the light to the soil. Then breaking up patches of earth, they
planted the grains of maize among the standing trees; its strong roots
readily penetrated deep into the soil, and the strong tops fought their
way to the light with a vigor which few plants possess. The grain was
ready for domestic use within three months from the time of planting,
and in four months it was ready for the harvest.
The beginnings in civilization which the aborigines of this country
had made, rested on this crop and on the pumpkin, which seems to
have been cultivated with it by the savages, as it still is by
those who inherited their lands and their methods of tillage. The
European colonists almost everywhere and at once adopted this crop
and the method of tillage which the Indians used. Maize-fields, with
pumpkin-vines in the interspaces of the plants, became for many years
the prevailing, indeed almost the only, crop throughout the northern
part of America. It is hardly too much to say, that, but for these
American plants and the American method of tilling them, it would have
been decidedly more difficult to have fixed the early colonies on this
shore.
Another American plant has had an important influence on the history
of American commerce, though it did not aid in the settlement of the
country,—tobacco. That singular gift of the New World to the Old
quickly gave the basis of a great export to the colonies of Maryland,
Virginia, and North Carolina; it alone enabled the agriculture of the
Southern colonies to outgrow in wealth those which were planted in
more northern soil. To this crop, which demands much manual labor of
an unskilled kind, and rewards it well, we owe the rapid development
of African slavery. It is doubtful if this system of slavery would
ever have flourished if America had been limited in its crops to those
plants which the settlers brought from the Old World. Although African
slavery existed for a time in the States north of the tobacco region,
it died away in them even before the humanitarian sentiments of modern
times could have aided in its destruction; it was the profitable nature
of tobacco crops which fixed this institution on our soil, as it was
the great extension of cotton culture which made this system take on
its overpowering growth during the first decades of the nineteenth
century.
Another interesting effect of the conditions of tillage which met the
early settlers upon this soil depends upon the peculiar distribution of
forests in North America. All those regions which were first occupied
by European peoples were covered by very dense forests. To clear these
woods away required not less than thirty days’ labor to each acre of
land. In the glaciated districts, as before remarked, this labor of
preparation was nearly doubled. The result was that the area of tillage
only slowly expanded as the population grew denser, and the surplusage
of grain for export was small during the first two centuries. When
in the nineteenth century the progress westward suddenly brought the
people upon the open lands of the prairies, the extension of tillage
went on with far greater celerity. We are now in the midst of the great
revolution that these easily won and very fertile lands are making
in the affairs of the world. For the first time in human history, a
highly skilled people have suddenly come into possession of a vast and
fertile area which stands ready for tillage without the labor that is
necessary to prepare forest lands for the plough. They are thus able
to flood the grain-markets of the world with food derived from lands
which represent no other labor beyond tillage except that involved
in constructing railways for the exportation of their products. This
enables the people of the Western plains to compete with countries
where the land represents a great expenditure of labor in overcoming
the natural barriers to the cultivation of the soil.
There are many lesser peculiarities connected with the soils of North
America that have had considerable influence upon the history of
the people; the most essential fact is, however, that the climatic
conditions of this continent are such that all the important European
products, except the olive, will flourish over a wide part of its
surface. So that the peoples who come to it from any part of Europe
find a climate not essentially different from their own, where the
plants and animals on which their civilization rested would flourish as
well as in their own home.[5]
We may note also that the climate of North America brought Europeans
in contact with no new diseases. North of the Gulf of Mexico the
maladies of man were not increased by the transportation from Europe.
It is difficult to arrive at a satisfactory determination concerning
the effect of American conditions upon the peoples who have come from
Europe to live a life of many generations upon its soil. Much has been
said in a desultory way upon this subject, but little that has any
very clear scientific value. The problem is a very complicated one. In
the first place it is very difficult, if not impossible, to separate
the effects of climate from those brought about by a diversity of the
social conditions, such as habits of labor, of food, etc. Moreover,
the problem is further complicated by the fact that there has been a
constant influx of folk into America from various parts of Europe, so
that in most parts of the country there has been a constant admixture
of the old blood and the new.
After reviewing the sources of information, I am convinced that the
following facts may be regarded as established: The American people are
no smaller in size than are the peoples in Europe from which they are
derived; they are at least as long-lived; their capacity to withstand
fatigue, wounds, etc. is at least as great as that of any European
people; the average of physical beauty is probably quite as good as it
is among an equal population in the Old World; the fecundity of the
people is not diminished. The compass of this essay will not permit
me to enter into the details necessary to defend these propositions
as they might be defended. I will, however, show certain facts which
seem to support them. First, as regards the physical proportions
of the American people. By far the largest collections of accurate
measurements that have ever been made of men were made by the officers
of the United States Sanitary Commission during the late Civil War.
These statistics have been carefully tabulated by Dr. B. A. Gould, the
distinguished astronomer. From the results reached by him, it is plain
that the average dimensions of these troops were as good as those of
any European army; while the men from those States where the population
had been longest separated from the mother country were on the whole
the best formed of all.[6]
The statistics of the life-insurance companies make it clear that the
death-rate is not higher in America among the classes that insure than
in England. I am credibly informed that American companies expect a
longer life among their clients than the English tables of mortality
assume.
The endurance of fatigue and wounds in armies has been proved by our
Civil War to be as good as that of the best English or Continental
troops. Such forced marches as that of Buell to the relief of the
overwhelmed troops at Pittsburg Landing, or Shiloh,—where the men
marched thirty-five miles without rest, and at once entered upon
a contest which checked a victorious army,—is proof enough of
the physical and moral endurance of the people. The extraordinary
percentage of seriously wounded men that recovered during this
war,—a proportion without parallel in European armies,—can only be
attributed to the innate vigor of the men, and not to any superiority
in the treatment they received. The distinguished physiologist, Dr.
Brown-Séquard, assures me that the American body, be it that of man or
beast, is more enduring of wounds than the European; that to make a
given impression upon the body of a creature in America it is necessary
to inflict severer wounds than it would be to produce the same effect
on a creature of the same species in Europe. His opportunities for
forming an opinion on this subject have been singularly great, so
that the assertion seems to me very important. That the fecundity of
the population is not on the whole diminishing, is sufficiently shown
by the statistics of the country. In the matter of physical beauty,
the condition of the American people cannot, of course, be made a
matter of statistics. The testimony of all intelligent travellers is
to the effect that the forms of the people have lost nothing of their
distinguished inheritance of beauty from their ancestors. The face is
certainly no less intellectual in its type than that of the Teutonic
peoples of the Old World, while the body is, though perhaps of a less
massive mould, without evident marks of less symmetry.
Perhaps the best assurance we obtain concerning the fitness of North
America for the long-continued residence of Teutonic people may be
derived from the consideration of the history of the two American
settlements that have remained for about two hundred years without
considerable admixture of new European blood. These are the English
settlement in Virginia and the French in the region of the St.
Lawrence; both these populations have been upon the soil for about two
hundred years, with but little addition from their mother countries.
In Virginia, essentially the whole of the white blood is English; the
only mixture of any moment is from the Pennsylvania Germans, a people
of kindred race, and equally long upon the soil. I believe that not
less than ninety-five per cent of the white blood,—if I may be allowed
this form of expression,—is derived from British soil. We have no
statistics concerning the bodily condition of the Virginian people
which will enable us to compare them with those of other States. The
few recruits in the Federal army who were measured by the Sanitary
Commission were mainly from the poorer classes, the oppressed “poor
whites,” and are not a fair index of the physical condition of the
people of this State. We have only the fact that the Confederate army
of northern Virginia, composed in the main of the small farmers of the
commonwealth, fought, under Lee and Jackson, a long, stubborn, losing
fight, as well as any other men of the race have done. No other test
of vigor is so perfect as that which such a struggle gives. Where a
people make such men as Jackson, and such men as made Jackson’s career
possible, we may be sure that they are not in their decadence.
In Kentucky and Tennessee we have little else than Virginia blood and
that of northwestern Carolina, which was derived from Virginia, with
the exception of the very localized German settlements along the Ohio
River: practically the whole of the white agricultural population of
these States is of British blood that has been on this soil for about
two hundred years. I do not believe there is any other body of folk of
as purely English stock as this white population of Virginia, Kentucky,
and Tennessee: it amounts to almost three millions of people, and
there is scarcely any admixture of other blood. In Virginia, as before
remarked, there are no statistics to show just what the physical
conditions of the population are; but in Kentucky and Tennessee a large
number of men who were born upon the soil were measured by the Sanitary
Commission. The results were as follows: the troops from Kentucky and
Tennessee were larger than those from any other State; in height,
girth of chest, and size of head, they were of remarkable proportions.
The men of no European army exceed them in size, though some picked
bodies of troops are equally large. We must remember also that these
men were not selected from the body of the people, as European armies
are, but that they represent the State in arms, very few being rejected
for disability. We must also remember that the men from the most
fertile parts of these States, those parts which have the reputation
of breeding the largest men, went into the Confederate army; while the
Union troops were principally recruited from the poorer districts,
where the people suffer somewhat from the want of sufficient variety
in their food. The fighting quality of these men is well shown by the
history of a Kentucky brigade in the Confederate army in the campaign
near Atlanta in 1864, in which the brigade, during four months of very
active service, received more wounds than it had men, and not over ten
men were unaccounted for at the end of the campaign.[7] The goodness of
this service is probably not exceptional; it has for us, however, the
especial interest that these men were the product of six generations of
American life,—showing as well as possible that the physical and moral
conditions of life upon this continent are not calculated to depreciate
the important inheritances of the race.
Although it is only a part of the problem, it is well to notice that
the death-rate in these States of old American blood is singularly
low, and the number of very aged people who retain their faculties to
an advanced age very great. The census of 1870 gave the death-rate of
Kentucky at about eleven in a thousand,—a number small almost beyond
belief. It should also be noticed that the emigration from Kentucky
has for fifty years or more been very large, relatively almost as
heavy as that from Massachusetts. It is a well-known fact, which is
made most evident by the statistics of the Sanitary Commission above
referred to, that the larger and stronger citizens of a State are more
apt to emigrate than those of weaker frame, the result being that the
population left behind is deprived of its most vigorous blood.
The Canadian-French population presents us with another instance
in which a European people long upon the soil, and without recent
additions of blood from the native country, have maintained themselves
unharmed amid conditions of considerable difficulty. This French
population has been upon the soil for about as long as that of
Virginia; that is to say, for two centuries and more. I have been
unable to find any statistics concerning the numbers brought as
colonists to America. I have questioned various students on this
matter, and have come to the conclusion that the original number did
not exceed twenty-five thousand souls. This people has not perceptibly
intermingled with those of other blood, so that its separate career
can be traced with less difficulty than that of any other people.
Race-hatreds, differences of language, of religion, and of customs
have kept them apart from their neighbors in a fashion that is more
European than American. This has been a great disadvantage to the race,
for they have remained in a state of subordination as great as that in
which the Africans of the Southern States now are. No other folk of
European origin within the British Empire have remained so burdened
by disabilities of all kinds as this remarkable people. The soil with
which they have to deal is much more difficult than the average of
America; most of it lies beyond the limits where Indian corn will
grow, and much of it will scarcely nourish the hardier small grains.
Despite the material difficulties of their position, their general
illiteracy and intensified provincialism, this people have shown some
very vigorous qualities; they have more than doubled in numbers in each
generation; they are vigorous, exceedingly industrious, and have much
mechanical tact. In New England they hold their own in the struggle
with the native, so that it seems likely that the States of that
district may soon be in good part peopled by the folk of this race. As
near as I can ascertain, these Canadian-French of pure blood in Canada
and the United States amount to about two and a half millions; if this
be the case, the population has more than doubled each thirty years
since their arrival upon American soil,—which is about as rapid a rate
of increase as can be found among any people in the world, perhaps only
surpassed by the population of Virginia; which commonwealth, starting
with an original English emigration which could not have exceeded
one hundred thousand, counts at the present day not less than six
million descendants, or about twice as many as there would be if each
generation only doubled the numbers of the preceding.
There is yet another separate people on the American soil which has
been here for about six generations without any addition from abroad:
these are the so-called Pennsylvanian Germans. I shall not take time to
do more than mention them, for they, without recent European admixture,
show the same evidences of continued vigor that is presented by the
Virginian British and the Canadian French blood. Their progeny are to
be counted by millions; and though they, like the Canadian French, have
shown as yet little evidence of intellectual capacity, this may be
explained by the extreme isolation that their language and customs have
forced upon them.
Imperfectly as I have been able to present this important series of
facts, it is enough to make it clear that they are mistaken who think
that the recent emigrations from Europe have helped to maintain the
vigor of the American people. It seems more likely that, so far from
adding to the strength of the older stocks, the newer comers, mostly of
a lower kind of folk than the original settlers, have served rather to
hinder than to help the progress of the population which came with the
original colonies.
These considerations may be extended, by those who care to do so,
by a study of several other isolated peoples in this country,—the
German colonies of Texas, the Swiss of Tennessee, and several others;
all of which have prospered, and all of which have gone to prove that
the climate of North America is singularly well fitted for the use
of Northern Europeans. No sufficiently large colonies of Italians,
Spanish, or Portuguese have ever been planted within the limits of the
present United States to determine the fitness of its conditions for
the peoples of those States. There is no reason, however, to believe
that they would not have succeeded on this soil if fortune had brought
them here.
It is worth while to notice the fact that the European domesticated
animals have without exception prospered on American soil. The seven
really domesticated mammals and the half-dozen birds of our barnyards
have remained essentially unchanged in their proportions, longevity,
and fitness for the uses of man. As there can be no moral influences
bearing upon these creatures, they afford a strong proof of the
essential identity of the physical conditions of the two continents.
Evidence of the same sort, though less complete, is afforded by
the history of European domesticated plants on our soil. Speaking
generally, we may say that with trifling exceptions they all do as well
or better here than on their own ground. With the same care, wheat,
rye, oats, barley, etc., give the same returns as in their native
countries.
Imperfect as this _résumé_ is, it will make it clear that we are
justified in believing that the climate and other physical conditions
of central North America is as favorable to the development of men and
animals of European races as their own country. Those who would see how
important this point is to the history of our race should consider the
fact that the empire of India has proved utterly unfit for the uses of
Europeans, though other branches of the Aryan race have attained a high
degree of development within its limits.
* * * * *
I next propose to consider the especial physical features of the
continent with reference to several settlements that were made upon it,
the extent to which the geography and the local conditions of soil,
climate, etc. have affected the fate of the several colonies planted on
the eastern shore of North America north of Mexico.
Chance rather than choice determined the position of the several
colonies that were planted on the American soil. So little was known
of the natural conditions of the continent, or even of its shore
geography, and the little that had been discovered was so unknown
to navigators in general, that it was not possible to exercise much
discretion in the placing of the first settlers in the New World.
It happened that in this lottery the central parts of the American
continent fell to the English people; while the French, by one chance
and another, came into possession of two parts of the coast separated
by over two thousand miles of shore. It will be plain from the map that
these two positions were essentially the keys to the continent. The
access to the interior of the continent by natural water-ways is by two
lines,—on the north by the St. Lawrence system of lakes and rivers;
on the south by the Mississippi system of rivers, which practically
connects with the St. Lawrence system. Fortune, in giving France the
control of these two great avenues, offered her the mastery of the
whole of its vast domain. We have only to consider the part that the
pathway of the Rhine played in the history of mediæval trade in Europe,
to understand how valuable these lines would have been until railways
and canals had come to compete with water-ways-.
The only long-continued and systematic effort that France made to
perpetuate her power in North America was made through the Valley of
the St. Lawrence. Let us, therefore, consider the physical conditions
of this valley, and their influence upon the colonies that were
planted there. The St. Lawrence River system and the valley it drains
is most peculiar. It is, indeed, without its like in all the world.
At the mouth of the main river we have a set of rugged islands and
peninsulas enclosing an estuarine sea, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which
gradually narrows in the course of three hundred miles to the channel
of the great river. Ascending this river, the early explorers found a
wonderful set of rapids; then a lake larger than any sheet of fresh
water that had been seen by Europeans; then the swift channel of the
Niagara River with its great Falls; then, above, a series of four great
lakes, giving a real Mediterranean of fresh water. On the north was a
rude and unpromising country, rising upward into low but sterile and
rugged mountains; but on the south the natural boundaries of the valley
about the Great Lakes hardly exist: indeed, it was possible in the time
of rains for small boats to pass directly from Lake Michigan to the
waters of the Mississippi without a portage. It is this absence of the
southern bounding wall which constitutes the most peculiar feature in
this region of geographical surprises.
Viewed on the map, this system of waters seems to afford the natural
avenue to the heart of the continent; and when its geography became
known, we may well imagine that the French believed that they had
here the way to secure their dominion over it. Not only did it afford
a convenient water-way to the heart of the continent, but also, by
way of Lake Champlain, an easy access to the rear of the New-England
settlements and to the Hudson. Thus it not only flanked and turned the
English settlements of the whole continent, but it made the New-England
position appear almost untenable.
Experience, however, showed that there were certain grave disadvantages
attending the navigation of these waters. The river itself is not
readily accessible to large vessels beyond the tidal belt. Its rapids
and the Falls of Niagara are very great obstacles to its use,—barriers
which were never overcome during the French occupation of the country.
The Great Lakes are stormy seas, with scarcely a natural harbor,
requiring for their navigation even more seamanship than do the open
waters of the Atlantic. Moreover, these channels are frozen for five
months in the year, so that all movements made by them are limited to
about half the year.
Despite these disadvantages, the St. Lawrence system doubtless gave
the French a vast advantage in the race for empire on this continent.
When we consider that for a long time they had the control of the
Mississippi as well, it seems surprising that their power was ever
broken. The facilities which this water system gave to military
movements that took the whole of the English colonies in the rear was
not the sole advantage it afforded its first European possessors;
though, on the other hand, it must be remembered that the strategic
movements of the English were on interior lines, if largely indeed
without water-ways. It was the key to the best of the fur-trade
country, and to the best fisheries in America. For the first hundred
years after the settlement of this country, furs and fish were the
only exports of value from the region north of Maryland. The French
settlements gave them control of the best fishery grounds, as also the
trade with the Indians, who occupied the best country for peltries
in the world. As soon as the English came to possess it, this trade
was greatly developed. Along with these advantages, the country had
many evils that made the beginnings of colonies a matter of great
labor and difficulty. The soil is made up of drift, and requires a
great amount of labor to fit it for tillage. The greater part of it
is north of the maize belt, so that this cheap and highly nutritious
food was denied to the people. I have already said something concerning
the singular advantages that this grain had for the pioneer in the
American forests. I am inclined to believe that the want of this plant
in the French colonies was one cause of their slow development. Another
hindrance lay in the very long and severe winters. This limited the
time which could be given to the tillage of land, and made the keeping
of domesticated animals a matter of great difficulty. Something, too,
must be attributed to the character of the colonists and to the nature
of the land-tenure in this region. Their system of immigration gave a
smaller proportion of natural leaders to the people, so that the colony
always remained in a closer dependence on the mother country. There was
always an absence of the initiative power which so marked the English
colonies. The seigniorial systems of Europe have never prospered in
America, and the early experiments in founding colonies by the mere
exportation of men to this soil were failures even when the men were
of English blood. The efforts to colonize the seaboard region of North
Carolina without giving the fee of the land to the people, and without
care in the selection of the colonists, resulted in a failure even
more complete than that of the Canadian colonies. The Pamlico-Sound
settlements showed so little military power that they were incapable
of protecting themselves against the savages of the country, and
without the help of Virginia they would have been annihilated. The
French-Canadian colonists have always showed this incapacity to act
for themselves, which cannot be attributed to physical conditions. As
compared with the New-England colonists, with whom they came most in
contact, they represented a colonizing scheme based on trading-posts;
while their neighbors established and fought for homes in the English
sense. The struggle for existence was in the English settler met with
a vigor which grew out of political and religious convictions; in the
Frenchman it was endured for lucrative trade. Anything higher was left
to the missionary, who, while he led the pioneer life, failed in turn
to develop it.
We may sum up what is to be said of the St. Lawrence Valley, that it
is the best inlet to the continent north of the Mississippi River,
affording an easy way to the heart of the continent for six months of
the year. The valley is peculiar in the fact that it has no distinct
southern boundary, and that a large part of its area is occupied by a
system of fresh-water lakes. These sheets of water and this absence of
a strong ridge separating this basin from the water-sheds which lie
to the south of it would, if the French had been strong in a military
sense, have given them an advantage in the struggle for the continent;
but as long as this valley was held by a less powerful people than
their neighbors on the south, these geographical features would no
longer be advantageous to its occupiers.
The soil and climate of the St. Lawrence Valley are both rather against
the rapid development of agriculture, requiring far more labor to
make them arable, and giving a more limited return than do the more
southern soils; so that, despite the very great advantage which came
from the peculiarly open nature of this path into the interior of the
continent, the French did not succeed in maintaining themselves there
until its great military advantages could be turned to profit.
At the present time the existence of railways has greatly lessened
the value of geography as a factor in military movements, and the St.
Lawrence, closed as it is for nearly half a year by ice, has no longer
any military importance. As it is, we may be surprised that it has not
played a more important part in the military history of the continent
than it has done. We cannot avoid the conclusion that if the conditions
had been reversed, and the English settlements had occupied the Valley
of the St. Lawrence, and the French colonies the country to the
southward, the English colonists would have made use of its advantages
in a more effective way.
The settlements at the mouth of the Mississippi did not come into
the hands of the French until a late day; but the use they made of
this, the easiest navigated of all the great American rivers, was
considerable. These settlements were pushed up the valley of the main
stream and its greater tributaries, until they practically controlled
the larger part of the shores of the main waters. The swift current of
the Mississippi and its tributaries made ascending navigation difficult
and costly. It was, in fact, only with small cargoes in little boats
propelled by poles, or with the aid of sails when the winds favored,
that the stream could be mounted. The effective navigation was downward
towards the mouth. By way of the Mississippi the French power worked
into the centre of the continent far more rapidly than by the St.
Lawrence route; indeed, the advance was so rapid that if these Gallic
settlements had not been overwhelmed by the stronger tide of the
English people getting across the Alleghanies, a few years would have
given them a chance to fix their institutions and population in this
valley.
Throughout their efforts in North America, the French showed a capacity
for understanding the large questions of political geography, a genius
for exploration, and a talent for making use of its results, or guiding
their way to dominion, that is in singular contrast with the blundering
processes of their English rivals. They seem to have understood the
possibilities of the Mississippi Valley a century and a half before
the English began to understand them. They planted a system of posts
and laid out lines for commerce through this region; they strove to
organize the natives into civilized communities; they did all that
the conditions permitted to achieve success. Their failure must be
attributed to the want of colonists, to the essential irreclaimableness
of the American savage, and to the want of a basis for extended
commerce in this country. There were no precious metals to tempt men
into this wilderness, and none of the fancy for life or for lands among
the home people, that wandering instinct which has been the basis
of all the imperial power of the English race. Thus a most cleverly
devised scheme of continental occupation, which was admirably well
adapted to the physical conditions of the country, never came near to
success. It fell beneath the clumsy power of another race that had the
capacity for fixing itself firmly in new lands, and that grew without
distinct plan until it came to possess it altogether.
The British settlements on the American coast were not very well placed
for other than the immediate needs that led to their planting. They
did not hold any one of the three water-ways which led from the coast
into the interior of the continent, as we have seen the French obtained
control of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, and as is well known
the Dutch possession of the Hudson, which constituted the third and
least complete of the water-ways into the interior of the continent.
As regards their physical conditions, the original English colonies
are divisible into three groups,—those of New England; those of the
Chesapeake and Delaware district, including Pennsylvania, Virginia,
Maryland, New Jersey, and the central part of North Carolina; and
those on the coast region of the Carolinas. Each of these regions has
its proper physical characters, which have had special effects upon
their early history. In New England we have a shore-line that affords
an excellent system of harbors for craft of all sizes, and a sea that
abounds in fish. The land has a rugged surface made up of old mountain
folds, which have been worn down to their roots by the sea and by the
glaciers of many ice periods. There are no extended plains, and where
small patches of level land occur, as along the sea, there they are
mostly of a rather barren and sandy character. The remainder of the
surface is very irregular, and nearly one half of it is either too
steep for tillage or consists of exposed rocks. The soil is generally
of clay, and was originally covered almost everywhere with closely
sown boulders that had to be removed before the plough could do its
work. The rivers are mostly small, and from their numerous rapids
not navigable to any great distance from the sea, and none of their
valleys afford natural ways to the interior of the continent. In
general structure this region is an isolated mass separated from the
body of the continent by the high ridges of the Green Mountains and the
Berkshire Hills, as well as by the deep valley in which lie the Hudson
and Lake Champlain. The climate is rigorous, only less so than that of
Canada. There are not more than seven months for agricultural labor.
The New-England district, including therein what we may term the
Acadian Peninsula of North America, or all east of Lake Champlain and
the Hudson and south of the St. Lawrence, is more like Northern Europe
than any other part of America.
Nature does not give with free hands in this region, yet it offered
some advantages to the early settlers. The general stubbornness of
the soil made the coast Indians few in number, while its isolation
secured it from the more powerful tribes of the West. The swift rivers
afforded abundant water-power, that was early turned to use, and in
time became the most valuable possession that the land afforded. The
climate, though strenuous, was not unwholesome, and its severity gave
protection against the malarial fevers which have so hindered the
growth of settlements in more southern regions. Maize and pumpkins
could be raised over a large part of its surface, and afforded cheap
and wholesome food with little labor. The rate of gain upon the
primeval forest was at first very slow; none of the products of the
soil, except in a few instances its timber, had at first any value
for exportation. The only surplusage was found in the products of the
sea. In time the demand for food from the West Indian Islands made
it somewhat profitable to export grain. Practically, however, these
colonies grew without important help from any foreign commerce awakened
by the products of their soil. Their considerable foreign trade grew
finally upon exchanges, or on the products of the sea-fisheries and
whaling. Even the trade in furs, which was so important a feature in
the French possessions, never amounted to an important commerce in New
England. The aborigines were not so generally engaged in hunting, nor
were the rivers of New England ever very rich in valuable fur-bearing
species. The most we can say of New England is, that it offered a
chance for a vigorous race to found in safety colonies that should get
their power out of their own toil, with little help from fortune. It
was very badly placed for the occupancy of a people who were to use it
as a vantage-ground whence to secure control over the inner parts of
the continent. But for the modern improvement in commercial ways, the
isolation of this section from the other parts of the continent would
have kept it from ever attaining the importance in American life which
now belongs to it.
The settlements that were made along the Hudson were, as regards their
position, much better placed than were those in New England. The
valley of this stream is, as is well known to geologists, a part of
the great mountain trough separating from the newer Alleghanian system
on the west the old mountain system of the Appalachians, which, known
by the separate names of the Green Mountains, Berkshire Hills, South
Mountains, Blue Ridge, and Black Mountains, stretches from the St.
Lawrence to the northern part of Georgia. In the Hudson district the
Appalachian or eastern wall of the valley is known as the Berkshire
Hills and the Green Mountains, while the western or Alleghanian wall
is formed by the Catskill Mountains and their northern continuation in
the Hilderberg Hills. On the south the Appalachian wall falls away,
allowing the stream a wide passage to the sea; on the northwestern side
the Catskills decline, opening the wide passage through which flows
the Mohawk out of the broad fertile upland valley which it drains. It
appears likely that the Mohawk Valley for a while in recent geological
times afforded a passage of the waters of Lake Ontario to the channel
of the Hudson. This will serve to show how easy the passage is between
the Hudson Valley and the heart of the continent. Save that it is not
a water-way, this valley affords, through the plain of the Mohawk, the
most perfect passage through the long mountain line of the Alleghanies.
Before this passage could have any importance to its first European
owners, it fell into the hands of the English settlers. The fertility
of this valley of the Hudson and Mohawk is far greater than that of New
England. A larger portion of the land is arable, and it is generally
more fertile than that of the region to the east. The underlying rock
of the country is generally charged with lime, which assures a better
soil for grain crops than those derived from the more argillaceous
formations of New England. The Mohawk is for its size perhaps the most
fertile valley in America. The climate of this district is on the whole
more severe than that of New England, but the summer temperature admits
the cultivation of all the crops of the Northern States.
Though from Holland, the original settlers of the Hudson Valley were by
race and motives so closely akin to the English settlers to the north
and south of them that a perfect fusion has taken place. The Dutch
language is dead save in the mouths of a few aged people, and of their
institutions nothing has remained.[8]
The most striking contrast between the physical conditions of the New
York colony and those of New England is its relative isolation from the
sea. Staten Island and Long Island are strictly maritime; the rest is
almost continental in its relations.
South of New York the conditions of the colonists as regards
agriculture were very different from what they were north of that
point. To the north the soil is altogether the work of the glacial
period. It is on this account stony and hard to bring into cultivation,
as before described; but when once rendered arable, it is very
enduring, changing little with centuries of cropping. South of this
point the soil is derived from the rocks which lie below it, save just
along the sea and the streams. The decayed rock that happens to lie
just beneath the surface produces a fertile or an infertile earth,
varied in quality according as the rocks. On the whole it is less
enduring than are the soils of New England, though it is much easier to
bring it into an arable state. It also differs from glacial soil in the
fact that there is an absolute dependence of the qualities it possesses
upon the subjacent rock. When that changes, the soil at once undergoes
a corresponding alteration. In certain regions it may be more fertile
than any glacial soil ever is; again, its infertility may be extreme,
as, for instance, when the underlying rocks are sandstones containing
little organic matter.
In this southern belt the region near the shore is rather malarial.
The soil there is sandy, and of a little enduring nature, and the
drainage is generally bad. Next within this line we have the fringe
of higher country which lies to the east of the Blue Ridge. This
consists of a series of rolling plains, generally elevated four or five
hundred feet above the sea. Near the Blue Ridge it is changed into a
rather hilly district, with several ranges of detached mountains upon
its surface; to the east it gradually declines into the plain which
borders the sea. Within the Blue Ridge it has the steep walls of the
old granite mountains, which, inconspicuous in New Jersey, increase in
Pennsylvania to important hills, become low mountains of picturesque
form in Virginia, and finally in North and South Carolina attain the
highest elevation of any land in eastern North America. This mountain
range widens as it increases in height, and the plains that border it
on the east grow also in height and width as we go to the southward in
Virginia. All this section is composed of granite and other ancient
rocks, which by their decay afford a very good soil. Beyond the Blue
Ridge, and below its summits, are the Alleghanies. Between them is a
broad mountain valley, known to geologists as the great Appalachian
valley. This is an elevated irregular table-land, generally a thousand
feet or more above the sea, and mostly underlaid by limestone, which
by its decay affords a very fertile soil. This singular valley is
traceable all the way from Lake Champlain to Georgia. The whole
course of the Hudson lies within it. As all the mountains rise to the
southward, this valley has its floor constantly farther and farther
above the sea, until in Southern Virginia much of its surface is
about two thousand feet above that level. This southward increase of
elevation secures it a somewhat similar climate throughout its whole
length. This, the noblest valley in America, is a garden in fertility,
and of exceeding beauty. Yet west of this valley the Alleghanies proper
extend, a wide belt of mountains, far to the westward. Their surface is
generally rugged, but not infertile; they, as well as the Blue Ridge,
are clad with thick forests to their very summits.
The shore of this, the distinctly southern part of the North American
coast, is deeply indented by estuaries, which have been cut out
principally by the tides. These deep sounds and bays,—the Delaware,
Chesapeake, Pamlico, Albemarle, and others,—with their very many
ramifications, constitute a distinctive feature in North America.
Although these indentations are probably not of glacial origin, except
perhaps the Delaware, they much resemble the great fjords which the
glaciers have produced along the shores of regions farther to the
northward. By means of these deep and ramified bays all the country of
Virginia and Maryland lying to the east of the Appalachians is easily
accessible to ships of large size. This was a very advantageous feature
in the development of the export trade of this country, as it enabled
the planters to load their crops directly into the ships which conveyed
them to Europe, and this spared the making of roads,—a difficult task
in a new country. The principal advantage of this set of colonies lay
in the fact that they were fitted to the cultivation of tobacco. The
demand for this product laid the foundations of American commerce, and
was full of good and evil consequences to this country. It undoubtedly
gave the means whereby Virginia became strong enough to be, on the part
of the South, the mainstay of the resistance of the colonies to the
mother country. On the other hand, it made African slavery profitable,
and so brought that formidable problem of a foreign and totally alien
race to be for all time a trouble to this country. Although the
cultivation of cotton gave the greatest extension to slavery, it is
not responsible for its firm establishment on our soil. That was the
peculiar work of tobacco.
The climate of this region is perhaps the best of the United States.
The winters want the severity that characterizes them in the more
northern States, and the considerable height of the most of the
district relieves it of danger from fevers. I have elsewhere spoken of
the evidences that this district has maintained the original energy of
the race that founded its colonies.
The Carolinian colonies are somewhat differently conditioned from those
of Virginia, and their history has been profoundly influenced by their
physical circumstances. South of the James River the belt of low-lying
ground near the sea-shore widens rapidly, until the nearest mountain
ranges are one hundred and fifty miles or more from the shore. This
shore belt is also much lower than it is north of the James; a large
part of its surface is below the level where the drainage is effective,
and so is unfit for tillage. Much of it is swamp. The rivers do not
terminate in as deep and long bays, with steep clay banks for borders,
as they do north of the James. They are generally swamp-bordered in
their lower courses, and not very well suited for settlements.
The soil of these regions is generally rather infertile; it is
especially unfitted for the cultivation of grains except near the
shore, where the swamps can often be converted into good rice-fields.
Maize can be tilled, but it, as well as wheat, barley, etc., gives not
more than half the return that may be had from them in Virginia. Were
it not for the cotton crop, the lowland South would have fared badly.
All the shore belt of country is unwholesome, being affected with
pernicious fevers, which often cannot be endured by the whites, even
after the longest acclimatization. The interior region, even when not
much elevated above the sea, or away from the swamps, is a healthy
country, and the district within sight of the Blue Ridge and the Black
Mountains is a very salubrious district. This region was, however,
not at once accessible to the colonists of the Carolinian shore, and
was not extensively settled for some time after the country was first
inhabited, and then was largely occupied by the descendants of the
Virginian colonists.
The history of this country has served to show that much of the
lowlands near the shore is not well fitted for the use of European
peoples; they are likely to fall into the possession of the African
folk, who do not suffer, but rather seem to prosper in the feverish
lowlands. The interior districts beyond the swamp country are well
suited to Europeans, and where the surface rises more than one thousand
feet above the sea, as it does in western North and South Carolina, the
climate is admirably well suited to the European race. It is probable
that the English race has never been in a more favorable climate than
these uplands afford.
This Carolinian section was originally settled by a far more
diversified population than that which formed the colonies to the
northward. This was especially the case in North Carolina. This colony
was originally possessed by a land company, which proposed to find its
profit in a peculiar fashion. This company paid contractors so much
a head for human beings put ashore in the colony. One distinguished
trader in population, a certain Baron de Graffenreid, settled several
thousand folk at and about New Berne, on the swampy shores of the
Eastern sounds. They were from a great variety of places,—a part
from England, others from the banks of the Rhine, others again from
Switzerland. There was a great mass of human driftwood in Europe at
the close of the seventeenth century, the wreck of long-continued
wars; so it was easy to bring immigrants by the shipload if they were
paid for. But the material was unfit to be the foundation of a State.
From this settlement of eastern North Carolina is descended the most
unsatisfactory population in this country. The central and western
parts of North Carolina had an admirable population, that principally
came to the State through Virginia; but this population about Pamlico
and Albemarle Sounds, though its descendants are numerous, perhaps
not numerically much inferior to that which came from the Virginia
settlements, is vastly inferior to it in all the essential qualities of
the citizen. From the Virginia people have come a great number of men
of national and some of world-wide reputation. It is not likely that
any other population, averaging in numbers about five hundred thousand
souls, has in a century furnished as many able men. On the other hand,
this eastern North Carolina people has given no men of great fame to
the history of the country, while a large part of the so-called “poor
white” population of the South appears to be descended from the mongrel
folk who were turned ashore on the eastern border of North Carolina.
South Carolina was much more fortunate in its early settlers on its
seaboard than the colony to the north. Its population was drawn from
rather more varied sources than that of Virginia, New York, or New
England, but it would be hard to say that its quality was inferior;
despite the considerable admixture of Irish and French blood, it was
essentially an English colony.
On the whole, although the quality of the climate would lead some to
expect a lowering of the quality of the English race in these southern
colonies, it is not possible to trace any such effect in the people.
Although the laboring classes of whites along the seaboard appear to
occupy a physical level rather below that of the same class in Virginia
and the more northern regions, they have great endurance,—as was
sufficiently proven by the fact that they made good soldiers during the
recent Civil War. In the upland districts of these States, in western
North and South Carolina, and especially in northern Georgia, the
physical constitution of the people is, I believe, the best in this
country. In the district north of Pennsylvania, the elevation of the
mountains, or the table-lands which lie about them, is not profitable
to the dwellers in these districts; each added height scarcely gives
any additional healthfulness, and the additional cold is hurtful to
most crops. In this southern region, however, the greater height and
width of the Appalachian mountain system, including its elevated
valleys, is a very great advantage to this region in all that concerns
its fitness for the use of man. The climate of one half of the country
south of the James and Ohio Rivers and east of the Mississippi is
purified and refreshed by the elevations of this noble mountain system.
It is the opinion of all who have examined this country, that it is
extremely well fitted for all the uses of the race: an admirable
climate, much resembling that of the Apennines of Tuscany, a fertile
soil admitting a wide diversity of products, and a great abundance of
water-power characterize all this upland district of the South.
A few words will suffice for all that concerns the mineral resources
of the original colonies. At the outset of the colonization of America
we hear a good deal about the search for gold; fortunately there was a
very uniform failure in the first efforts to find this metal, so that
it ceased to play a part in the history of these colonies. Very little
effort to develop the mineral resources of this region was made during
the colonial period. A little iron was worked in Rhode Island, New
York, and Virginia, some search of a rather fruitless sort was made for
copper ore in Connecticut, but of mining industry, properly so called,
there was nothing until the Revolutionary War stimulated the search for
iron and lead ores. The discovery of the gold deposits in the Carolinas
did not come about until after the close of the colonial period. These
deposits were not sufficiently rich to excite an immigration of any
moment to the fields where they occur.
Practically the mineral resources of what we may term the Appalachian
settlements of North America never formed any part of the inducements
which led immigrants to them. In this respect they differ widely from
the other colonies which were planted in the Americas. The greater
part of the Spanish and Portuguese settlements in America were made by
gold-hunters. The state of morals which led to these settlements was
not favorable to the formation of communities characterized by high
motives. There were doubtless other influences at work to lower the
moral quality of the settlements in Mexico and South America, but the
nature of the motives which brought the first settlers upon the ground
and gave the tone to society is certainly not the least important
of the influences which have affected the history of the American
settlements.
To close this brief account of the physical conditions of the first
European settlements in North America, we may say, that the English
colonies were peculiarly fortunate in those physical conditions upon
which they fell. There is no area in either of the Americas, or for
that matter in the world outside of Europe, where it would have been
possible to plant English colonies that would have been found so
suitable for the purpose: climate, soil, contact with the sea, and a
chance of dominion over the whole continent were given them by fortune.
They had but the second choice in the division of the New World; yet
to the English fell the control of those regions which experience has
shown to hold its real treasures. Fortune has repeatedly blessed this
race; but never has she bestowed richer gifts than in the chance that
gave it the Appalachian district of America.
[Illustration]
NARRATIVE AND CRITICAL
HISTORY OF AMERICA.
CHAPTER I.
CORTEREAL, VERRAZANO, GOMEZ, THEVET.
BY GEORGE DEXTER.
JOHN CABOT discovered the continent of North America June 24, 1497; and
his son Sebastian the next year coasted its shores for a considerable
distance,—perhaps even, as some accounts say, from Hudson’s Bay to
North Carolina.[9] The reports of their voyages doubtless reached the
Continental courts of Europe without delay. Spain was occupied with
the attempts of Columbus to attain the Indies by a southern route
promising success; while Portugal, always among the foremost maritime
nations, had now an energetic ruler in her young King Emanuel, who had
succeeded to the throne in 1495. He had already sent out Vasco da Gama
and Cabral, who followed the route to the Indies by the way of the
Cape of Good Hope;[10] and he was well disposed also for an attempt to
pursue the indications given by the Cabots, that a short way to the
Land of Spices might lie through a northwest passage among the islands,
of which the New World was still supposed to consist. Such is at least
generally thought to have been the reason for the expeditions of the
Cortereals, although we have no official reports of their voyages or
their aims.
The family of Cortereal was not without position in the Portuguese
kingdom. Ioâo Vaz Cortereal had been appointed, some years before this
time, hereditary governor of the Island of Terceira; and his sons had
perhaps learned there the secrets of navigation. It has been even
asserted by some Portuguese writers that this Ioâo Vaz had himself
discovered some part of America nearly thirty years before the first
voyage of Columbus, and had received his governorship as the reward of
the discovery; but there is no evidence for this claim.
It is known, however, that in the year 1500 a son of Ioâo Vaz, Gaspar
Cortereal, having obtained from the King a grant or license to discover
new islands, fitted out one, or perhaps two, vessels, with the help
of his brother Miguel, and sailed from Lisbon early in the summer for
a voyage to the northwest. The accounts say that he touched at the
family island of Terceira, and in due time returned to Portugal with
a report of having landed in a country situated in a high degree of
latitude, now supposed to have been Greenland, which name, indeed (or
rather its equivalent, _Terra Verde_), he is said to have given to the
country. The details of the voyage are scanty, and have been confused
with those of the second expedition; but it was so far successful
that the enterprise was renewed the next year. Miguel Cortereal again
contributed to the expenses of this second voyage. It appears, indeed,
from a letter of his dated August 6, and preserved in the State
archives at Lisbon, that he had prepared a vessel with the expectation
of sharing personally in the expedition, but was delayed by a royal
order to increase the number of his crew, and afterward by contrary
winds, until it was too late in the season to follow Gaspar with any
hope of success. Gaspar had sailed with three ships, May 15, 1501, and
had directed his course west-northwest. After sailing in this direction
two thousand miles from Lisbon, he discovered a country quite unknown
up to that time. This he coasted six or seven hundred miles without
finding any end to the land; so he concluded that it must be connected
with the country discovered to the north the year before, which country
could not now be reached on account of the great quantity of ice and
snow. The number of large rivers encountered, encouraged the navigators
in their belief that the country was no island. They found it very
populous, and brought away a number of the natives; and those savages
who safely arrived in Portugal were described as “admirably calculated
for labor, and the best slaves I have ever seen.” A piece of a broken
sword, and two silver earrings, evidently of Italian manufacture, found
in the possession of the natives, were probably relics of the visit of
Cabot to the country three years earlier. One of the vessels reached
Lisbon on its return, October 8, and brought seven of the kidnapped
natives. It reported that another ship had fifty more of these. This
vessel arrived three days later with its expected cargo; but the third,
with Gaspar Cortereal, was never heard from. Her fate remained a
mystery, although several efforts were made to ascertain it.
The next year, 1502, Miguel Cortereal started with three ships (one
account says two) well equipped and found, having agreed with the King
to make a search for the missing Gaspar. The expedition sailed May 10.
Arriving on the American coast, they found so many entrances of rivers
and havens, that it was agreed to divide the fleet, the better to
search for the missing vessel. A rendezvous was arranged for the 20th
of August. Two ships met at the appointed time and place; but Miguel
Cortereal’s did not appear, and the others, after waiting some time,
returned to Portugal.
[Illustration: EARLY FISHING STAGES.
[This cut is a fac-simile of one in the corner of _A New and Correct
Map of America_, 1738, which belongs to Sir William Keith’s _History
of the British Plantations in America_: Part I., Virginia, London,
1738. It presumably represents the fashion of these appliances of the
fishermen which had prevailed perhaps for centuries.
It was suggested by Forster, _Northern Voyages_, book iii. chaps. iii.
and iv., that Breton fishermen may have been on the Newfoundland coast
before Columbus. Scholars are coming more and more to believe the
possibility and even probability of it. Every third day in the calendar
was then a fast-day, and the incentive to seeking fish on distant seas
was great. That Cabot should find the natives of this region calling
the cod _baccalaos_, a name applied by the seamen of the Bay of Biscay
to that fish, has also been suggestive; but this story, deducible
apparently from no earlier writer than Peter Martyr in 1516, is not
altogether trustworthy, since there is doubt if the folk who called
the fish by that name were the natives, as Martyr seems to think,
or simply the common people, as would seem to be implied in other
forms of the statement (see Vol. III. p. 45). Greenland, as we know
from the pre-Columbian maps (Ptolemy of 1482, etc.), was considered
a part of Europe. Its adjacent shores were in the common mind but
further outposts of the same continent; so that the returned sailors’
reports of the distant parts—islands they thought them—might cause
no awakening of the idea of a new world. Cf. Navarrete, _Viages_, iii.
41, 46, 176; Eusebius, _Chronicon_ (1512), p. 172; Wytfliet, _Histoire
des Indes_, p. 131; Lescarbot, _Nouvelle France_ (1618), p. 228; Biard,
_Relation_ (1616), chap. i.; Champlain (1632), p. 9; Charlevoix,
_Nouvelle France_, i. 4, 14, or Shea’s edition, i. 106; Estancelin,
_Navigateurs Normands_; Kunstmann, _Entdeckung Amerikas_, pp. 69, 125;
Peschel, _Geschichte des Zeitalters_, etc., p. 332; Vitet, _Histoire
de la Dieppe_, p. 51; Harrisse, _Cabots_, p. 271; Kohl, _Discovery of
Maine_, pp. 188, 201, 203, 205, 280; Parkman, _Pioneers_, p. 171; _Mag.
of Amer. Hist._, 1882, April; _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, 1880, p.
229, etc.—ED.]]
Miguel also was never heard of again. Another expedition, sent out at
the expense of the King, a year later, returned without having found a
trace of either brother. And yet once more, the oldest of the family,
Vasqueanes Cortereal, then governor of Terceira, proposed to undertake
the quest in person; but Emanuel refused the necessary permission,
declining to risk the lives of more of his subjects.
The Cortereals had no successors among their countrymen in the attempt
to reach the Indies by the Northwest Passage; but their voyages opened
for Portugal a source of much trade. Individuals, and perhaps companies
or associations, soon followed in their track in the pursuit of fish,
until the Portuguese enterprises of this sort on the American coasts
grew to large proportions, and produced considerable revenue for the
State.
* * * * *
The consolidation of France into one great kingdom may be said to date
from 1524, when the death of Claude, the wife of Francis I., vested the
hereditary right to the succession of Brittany in the crown of France.
The marriage of Charles VIII. with Anne, Claude’s mother, in 1491, had
brought the last of the feudal fiefs into subjection; but it required
many years to make the inhabitants of these provinces Frenchmen, and
the rulers at Paris exercised little authority over the towns and
principalities of the interior. The coasts of Normandy and Brittany
were peopled by a race of adventurous mariners, some of them exercising
considerable power; as, for instance, the Angos of Dieppe, one of whom
(Jean) was ennobled, and created viscount and captain of that town.
Such places as Dieppe, Honfleur, St. Malo, and others had already
furnished men and leaders for voyages of exploration and discovery.
These had made expeditions to the Canaries and the African coast, and
the fishing population of the French provinces were not unused to
voyages of considerable length. They were not slow, then, in seeking
a share in the advantages offered by the new countries discovered by
Cabot and Cortereal, and they speedily became skilful and powerful in
the American fisheries. The fishermen of the ports of Brittany are
known to have reached the Newfoundland shores as early as 1504. They
have left there an enduring trace in the name of Cape Breton, which,
in one form or another, is found upon very early maps. Two years
afterward Jean Denys, who was from Honfleur, is said to have visited
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and to have made a chart of it; but what now
passes for such a chart is clearly of later origin. Another two years
elapse, and we read of the voyage, in 1508, of a Dieppe mariner, Thomas
Aubert by name, who is said to have brought home the first specimens
of the American natives. A contemporary chronicle relates the visit of
seven of those savages to Rouen in 1509. The frequency of the voyages
of these fishermen and their skill in navigation are proved by the
provision in Juan de Agramonte’s commission from the Spanish Crown, in
1511, that he might employ as pilots of his proposed expedition two
mariners from Brittany.[11] In 1518, or (as M. d’Avezac thinks) perhaps
a few years later, the Baron de Léry attempted a French settlement in
the new country. But storms and unfavorable circumstances brought about
the failure of this expedition.[12]
* * * * *
We have few particulars of the early life of Giovanni da Verrazano, who
commanded the first French expedition sent out under royal auspices.
The date of his birth is uncertain; but he is supposed to have been
born shortly after 1480, in Florence,—where members of the family
had attained high office at various times,—and to have been the son
of Piero Andrea da Verrazano and Fiametta Capella. He is said to
have travelled extensively, to have passed some years in Egypt and
Syria, and to have visited the East Indies. It has also been stated,
but on doubtful authority, that he commanded one of Aubert’s ships
in that mariner’s expedition to America in 1508. With the year 1521
Verrazano begins to appear in Spanish history as a French corsair; in
which character, and under the name of Juan Florin or Florentin, he
preyed upon the commerce between Spain and her new-found possessions.
It was, perhaps, while engaged in this occupation that he gained the
notice and favor of Francis I. Indeed, his voyage of discovery was
immediately preceded by, or even connected with, one of these predatory
cruises. The Portuguese ambassador in France, Joâo da Silveira, wrote
home, April 25, 1523: “Joâo Verezano, who is going on the discovery
of Cathay, has not left up to this date, for want of opportunity, and
because of differences, I understand, between himself and men.” And
Verrazano himself says, in the cosmographical appendix to his letter,
that the object of his expedition was to reach Cathay by a westward
voyage, and that he expected to be able to penetrate any intervening
land. But we know from Spanish sources that in May or June of this
same year, 1523, Juan Florin captured the treasure sent home by Cortes
to the Emperor, and brought it into La Rochelle; and Verrazano speaks
in the beginning of his letter to the King of his success against the
Spaniards.[13]
Later in the year, perhaps (but it seems impossible now to separate
the voyage of discovery distinctly from the cruise against Spanish
commerce), Verrazano started with four ships. Disabled by storms, he
was forced to put back into some port of Brittany with two vessels, the
“Normandy” and the “Dauphine.” After repairing these, he made a fresh
start, but decided finally to proceed on the voyage to Cathay with the
“Dauphine” alone.
In this vessel he sailed, Jan. 17, 1524, from the Desiertas Rocks,
near the Island of Madeira, having fifty men and provisions for eight
months. For twenty-five days he proceeded, with a pleasant breeze,
toward the west, without any incident. Then on February 14 (20,
according to another version of his letter) he encountered a very
violent tempest. Escaping from this, he continued the voyage, changing
the course of the vessel more to the north, and in another twenty-five
days came within sight of land. This appeared low when first seen; and
on a nearer approach it gave evidence, from the fires burning on the
shore, that there were inhabitants. This landfall Verrazano places in
34° N., which would be not far from the latitude of Cape Fear, upon
the coast of North Carolina; and most commentators upon his letter
accept that as the probable point. He began his search for a harbor by
coasting south about fifty leagues; but finding none, and observing
that the land continued to extend in that direction, he turned and
sailed along the shore to the north. Still finding no opportunity to
land with the vessel, he decided to send a boat ashore. This was met
on its approach to the land by a crowd of the natives, who at first
turned to fly, but were recalled by friendly signs, and at last showed
the strangers the best place for making a landing, and offered them
food. These people were nearly black in color, of moderate stature
and good proportions. They went naked except for their breech-cloths,
and were, from the description, simple and of kind disposition. The
coast is described as covered with small sand-hills, and as pierced by
occasional inlets, behind which appeared a higher country, with fields
and great forests giving out pleasant odors. There were noticed, also,
lakes and ponds, with abundance of birds and beasts. The anchorage
Verrazano thought a safe one; for though there was no harbor, he says
that the water continued deep very close to the shore, and there was
excellent holding-ground for the anchor.
Thence he proceeded along a shore trending east, seeing great fires,
which gave him the impression that the country had many inhabitants.
While at anchor (perhaps near Raleigh Bay), the boat was sent to the
shore for water. There was no possibility of landing, on account of
the high surf; so a young sailor undertook to swim to the land, and
to give the natives some bells or other trinkets which the French
had brought for the purposes of traffic, or for presents. He was
overpowered by the waves, and, after a struggle, thrown upon the beach,
where he lay almost stunned. The Indians ran down, picked him up, and
carried him screaming with fright up the shore. They reassured him
by signs, stripped off his wet clothes, and dried him by one of their
fires,—much to the horror, says the narrative, of his comrades in the
boat, who supposed that the savages intended to roast and eat him. When
he was refreshed and recovered from his fright, he made them understand
that he wished to rejoin his friends, whereupon the natives accompanied
him back to the water, and watched his safe return to the boat.
Following the shore, which here turned somewhat to the north, in fifty
leagues more they reached a pleasant place, much wooded, near which
they anchored. Here they landed twenty men to examine the country,
and made a cruel return for the kindness which the natives had shown
the French sailor a short time before. On landing, the men found that
the Indians had taken refuge in the woods, with the exception of two
women and some small children who had attempted to hide in the long
grass. The Frenchmen offered food; but the younger woman refused it,
and in great fright called for help to the natives who had fled into
the forest. The French took the oldest of the children, a boy of eight,
and carried him to their vessel, to take back with them to France. They
attempted to kidnap also the young woman, who was handsome and tall,
about eighteen years of age; but she succeeded in escaping. The people
of this place are described as fairer than those first seen, and the
country as fertile and beautiful, but colder than the other.
The vessel remained at anchor three days, and then it was decided to
continue the voyage, but to sail only in the daytime, and to anchor
each night. After coursing a hundred leagues to the northeast, they
arrived at a beautiful spot where, between small steep hills, a great
stream poured its waters into the sea. This river was of great depth at
its mouth, and with the help of the tide a heavily loaded vessel could
easily enter. As Verrazano had good anchorage for his ship, he sent
his boat in. This, after going a half league, found that the entrance
widened into a magnificent lake of three leagues circuit, upon which at
least thirty of the natives’ boats were passing from shore to shore.
These people received the strangers kindly, and showed them the best
place to bring their boat to the land. A sudden squall from the sea
frightened the French, and they returned in haste to the ship without
exploring further this pleasant harbor,—which seems to have been that
of New York.
Thence they sailed to the east about eighty leagues (fifty, by one
account), keeping the land always in sight. They discovered an island
of triangular shape, of about the size of that of Rhodes, and about
ten leagues from the mainland, to which they gave the name of Louisa,
the mother of Francis I.,—the only name mentioned in the narrative.
This was covered with woods, and well peopled, as the number of fires
showed. From this island, which has been generally identified with
Block Island,[14] Verrazano, without landing, as the weather was bad,
steered for the coast again; and in fifteen leagues (perhaps retracing
his course) came to a most beautiful harbor. Here the ship was met by
many boats of the natives, who crowded close around it with cries of
astonishment and pleasure. They were easily persuaded to come on board,
and soon became very friendly. This harbor, which Verrazano places in
the parallel of Rome, 41° 40´ N., and which has been identified as that
of Newport, is described as opening toward the south, with an entrance
a half league in breadth, and widening into a great bay twenty leagues
in circuit. It contained five islands, among which any fleet might
find refuge from storms or other dangers. The entrance could be easily
guarded by a fort built upon a rock which seemed naturally placed in
its centre for defence. The natives are described as fine-looking, the
handsomest people seen in the voyage, of taller stature than Europeans,
of light color, sharp faces, with long black hair and black eyes, but
with a mild expression. The visits of their kings to the strange vessel
are described, and the eagerness of these rulers to know the use of
everything they saw is mentioned. The women are spoken of as modest
in their behavior, and as jealously guarded by their husbands. The
interior country was explored for a short distance, and found pleasant
and adapted to cultivation, with many large open plains entirely free
from trees, and with forests not so dense but that they could easily be
penetrated.
In this agreeable harbor, where everything that he saw filled him with
delight, and where the kindness of the inhabitants left him nothing to
desire, Verrazano tarried fifteen days. Then having supplied himself
with all necessaries, he departed on the 6th of May (Ramusio says the
5th), and sailed a hundred and fifty leagues without losing sight
of the land, which showed small hills, and was a little higher than
before, while the coast, after about fifty leagues, turned to the
north. No stop was made, for the wind was favorable, and the nature
of the country appeared much the same. The next landing was made in a
colder country, full of thick woods, where the natives were rude, and
showed no desire to communicate with the strangers. They were clothed
in skins, and their land seemed barren. They would accept nothing in
barter but knives, fish-hooks, and sharpened steel. When the French
landed and attempted to explore the country, they were attacked. This
landing has been placed somewhere north of Boston, possibly not far
from Portsmouth, in New Hampshire.
The voyage was continued in a northeasterly direction. The coast
appeared pleasanter, open, and free from woods, with a sight of high
mountains far inland. Within a distance of fifty leagues thirty-two
islands were discovered, all near the shore, which reminded the
navigator of those in the Adriatic. He did not stop to explore the
country, or to open communication with the natives, but continued
another hundred and fifty leagues in the same general direction, when
he arrived at about the latitude of 50° N. Here, having reached the
country already discovered by the Bretons, and finding his provisions
and naval stores nearly exhausted, he took in a fresh supply of wood
and water, and decided to return to France, having, he says, discovered
more than seven hundred leagues of unknown territory. He arrived at
Dieppe on his return early in July, for his letter to the King is dated
from that port on the 8th of the month.
We lose trace of Verrazano after his return from this voyage. Francis
I. was in no condition to profit from the opportunity offered him to
colonize a new world. He had engaged in a struggle with the Emperor;
was soon after the date of this letter busily occupied in fighting
battles; and at that of Pavia, Feb. 24, 1525, was taken prisoner, and
spent the next year in captivity in Spain. It has been suggested that
Verrazano went to England, and there offered his services to Henry
VIII., and there are contemporary allusions supporting the suggestion.
Mr. Biddle, in his _Memoir of Sebastian Cabot_, advances the opinion
that Verrazano was the Piedmontese pilot who was killed and eaten
by the savages in Rut’s expedition of 1527, which would harmonize
Ramusio’s statement that he made a second voyage to America and lost
his life there. But this is extremely doubtful.[15] We know from French
sources that in 1526 Verrazano joined with Admiral Chabot, Jean Ango,
and others, in an agreement for a voyage to the Indies for spices,
with a proviso inserted for the equitable division of any booty taken
“from the Moors or others, enemies of the faith and the King our lord.”
Spanish documents of official character show that Juan Florin, with
other French pirates, was captured at sea in 1527, and hung at the
small village of Colmenar, between Salamanca and Toledo, in November of
that year. But it has been also lately stated that a letter has been
found, dated at Paris, Nov. 14, 1527, which speaks of Verrazano as
_then_ preparing an expedition of five ships for America, expecting to
sail the following spring. If this statement is accurate, and the date
of the letter has been correctly read, grave doubts are thrown upon the
Spanish story of his execution. Either Florin was not Verrazano, or he
was not hanged at the time stated. I cannot undertake to reconcile all
these statements, but must leave them as I find them.
* * * * *
The voyage of Estévan (Stephen) Gomez, although not made under the
flag of France, should, perhaps, be studied in connection with that
of Verrazano. Spain did not fail to take notice of the discoveries of
the Cabots when the news of the return of Sebastian from the second
voyage reached London in 1498. Her ambassador at that Court, Don Pedro
de Ayala, in his despatch dated July 25 of that year, says that he has
given notice to the English king that the countries discovered by Cabot
belonged to his master. There are traces of voyages in a northwestern
direction under Spanish auspices in subsequent years. Navarrete thinks
that such was the object of the Spanish king in sending for Juan
Dornelos, or Dorvelos, in the spring of 1500. It is stated also that
Hojeda had orders about the same time to follow the English tracks. The
commission to Agramonte in 1511 (he having proposed a similar project
previously) was for the purpose of planting a settlement in the _tierra
nueva_ at the northwest. Magellan’s discovery of the long-sought strait
through the New World leading to the Land of Spices, although it
brought no immediate advantages, as the voyage was long and perilous,
revived and increased the interest in seeking for a shorter and more
northern passage. The agreement made with De Ayllon, June 12, 1523,
provided, among other things, for the search for another way through
the continent to the Moluccas, to be found north of Florida. Hernando
Cortes wrote home to the Emperor, Oct. 15, 1524, a letter on the
probability of there being such a passage easier than the one already
discovered, and proposed to seek for it. Gomez was of the same opinion,
for his voyage was undertaken to find this northern strait.
Estévan Gomez was a Portuguese and an experienced navigator. He had
entered the service of Spain a few years before this time, having
received the appointment of pilot in 1518 at the same time that
Sebastian Cabot was created “pilot major.” He had sailed with Magellan
on his great voyage as pilot of the “San Antonio,” but had joined
the crew of that vessel in their mutiny against her captain, Alvaro
de Mesquita, at the strait. He thus deserted Magellan, and brought
the ship home. In 1521 he was ordered to serve with the fleet which
was then preparing to sail against the French corsairs. He obtained
a concession from the Emperor, dated March 27, 1523, by which he was
to have a small vessel for an expedition to the northwest, armed and
provisioned for one year. Although this grant, like that made soon
afterward to De Ayllon, contained a proviso that the expedition should
carefully avoid trespassing upon the King of Portugal’s possessions
in the New World, that Power seems to have raised objections to the
voyage. The following year a council was convened at the small town of
Badajos for the settlement of the rival claims of Spain and Portugal,
and Gomez was sent with Cabot, Juan Vespucius, and others to this
council,—not as members, but in the capacity of _specialists_ or
_experts_, to give opinions on questions of navigation and cosmography.
The congress accomplished nothing in the way of an agreement between
the rival Powers, and after its adjournment the Council for the Indies
decided to allow the voyage proposed by Gomez.
Gomez sailed from Corunna, a port in the north of Spain, to which
the “Casa de Contratacion,” or India House, had been removed from
Seville, some time in February of the following year (1525), and was
absent about ten months. We have unfortunately no detailed account of
his voyage, and it does not now seem possible to say with certainty
even in which direction he explored the American coast. The accounts
given by the Spanish historians are very meagre. They seem to have
paid little attention to the voyage, except to record its failure to
discover the desired northern strait. The Spanish maps, however, show
plain traces of the voyage, in the _Tierra de Estévan Gomez_, the name
applied by Ribero and others to the large tract of country between Cape
Breton and Florida. Gomara, one of the earliest and best authorities
on American matters, heads the chapter which he devotes to Gomez, “Rio
de San Antonio,” which name is supposed to be the one given in Spanish
maps to the Hudson River. Gomez is said to have visited the country
at latitudes 40° and 41° north, and to have coasted a great extent of
land never before explored by the Spaniards. It is related also that he
visited the Island of Cuba, and refitted his vessel there. This would
be presumably on the homeward voyage. Failing to obtain the rich cargo
of spices which he had expected to bring home, he loaded his vessel
with kidnapped savages of both sexes, and with this freight reached
Corunna again in November, 1525.
All historians of the voyage made by Gomez have told the story about
the mistake of a zealous newsmonger in reference to the nature of the
cargo thus brought home. Peter Martyr is the first to tell it, in the
final chapter of his last decade, inscribed to Pope Clement VII.,
written in 1526. In answer to a question as to what he had brought,
Gomez was understood to reply “cloves” (_clavos_), when he really said
“slaves” (_esclavos_). The eager friend hastened to Court with the
news that the shorter strait had been discovered, thinking to obtain
some reward for his intelligence. The favorers of Gomez’ project (in
regard to which there appears to have been some difference of opinion)
greeted the news with applause, but were covered with ridicule when the
true story of the results of the voyage was published. Martyr quaintly
says: “If they hadd learned that the influence of the heauens could bee
noe where infused into terrestriall matters prepared to receiue that
aromaticall spirit, saue from the _Æquinoctiall_ sunne, or next vnto
it, they woulde haue knowne that in the space of tenn moneths (wherein
hee performed his voyage) aromaticall Cloues could not bee founde.”[16]
* * * * *
It does not fall within the limits of this chapter to relate the story
of the early attempts of the French Huguenots to plant colonies in this
country.[17] But I may refer very briefly to the first of these,—the
expedition sent by Admiral Coligny to Brazil under the command
of Villegagnon, in 1555; as a Franciscan monk, André Thevet, who
accompanied it, claims to have coasted the continent of North America
on his return voyage to France the next year.
Thevet says of himself that he had spent the early years of his life
in travel, and that he had already made a voyage to the East, of
which voyage, and of his skill in navigation, his friend Villegagnon
was well aware when he asked him to join the proposed expedition to
South America,—an offer which he (Thevet) was very ready to accept.
The start, he says, was made from Havre, May 6, 1555, and the voyage
across the ocean was long and tedious. It was not until the last day
of October that, about nine o’clock in the morning, their vessel
came within sight of the high mountains of Croistmourou. These were
within the limits of a country whose inhabitants were friends of the
Portuguese, and the French therefore decided to avoid landing there.
They continued the voyage, and seventeen days later cast anchor at the
River Ganabara (Rio Janeiro), where they were received in a friendly
manner by the natives, and decided to make their settlement.
Thevet remained with the colony only about ten weeks, leaving on his
homeward voyage, Jan. 31, 1556. He says that the commander of the
vessel decided to return by a more northern passage than that by which
he had crossed from France; and goes on to describe at some length
their voyage along the coast, and to give many particulars of the
countries and natives, most of which he must have obtained from other
travellers’ books and histories after his return. The progress was
slow. At the Cape of St. Augustine the vessel was delayed, he says,
two months in the attempt to round that promontory. The equinoctial
line was not crossed until about the middle of April; and after leaving
Espagnola a contrary wind blew them in toward the coast.
Thevet claims to have coasted the entire shore of the United States,
and gives occasional accounts of what he saw, and of intercourse with
the natives. But his details are always uncertain, and the places
he professes to have visited cannot be identified. No satisfactory
information can be obtained from his story; and indeed his reputation
for truth-telling is so poor that many historians are inclined to
reject altogether his recital of the voyage along our coast. It may
well be that Thevet invented the whole of it as a thread upon which
to hang the particulars about Florida, Norumbega, and other countries
which he gathered from books. After his return to France he was made
_aumonier_ to Catherine de Medicis, and also royal historiographer and
cosmographer.
CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.
THE earliest mention in print of the Cortereal voyages is found in
a small collection of travels (one of the very earliest collections
made), entitled _Paesi novamente retrovati_. This was published at
Vicenza, in Italy, as the colophon states, Nov. 3, 1507, and is
supposed to have been compiled by Fracanzio da Montalboddo, or by
Alessandro Zorzi.[18] The account of Gaspar Cortereal is contained
(book vi. chap. cxxv) in a letter written from Lisbon, Oct. 19, 1501
(eleven days only after the return of the first vessel which succeeded
in getting home from the second voyage), by the Venetian ambassador
in Portugal, Pietro Pasqualigo, to his brothers. This is, of course,
an authority of great value. The writer gives a brief account of the
voyage, speaks of the customs of the inhabitants of the new country,
and describes the captives which the ship had brought. He says that the
other vessel is expected immediately. Pasqualigo mentions, however,
only one voyage, and has apparently confused it with the earlier
one; for he says that the expedition sailed “lāno passato” (that
is 1500), and writes of the failure to reach a country discovered
“lanno passato.” Perhaps he received some account of both voyages
from the mariners, and in preparing his letter failed to preserve
the distinction between them. French versions of the letter appeared
in Paris in 1517 and 1522. An English translation of the interesting
portions of this letter is given in Biddle’s _Cabot_, at pp. 239, 240.
Another contemporary account of this voyage of Gaspar Cortereal has
lately been discovered. M. Harrisse has obtained from the archives
of Modena a despatch sent to Hercules d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, by
Alberto Cantino, his representative at Lisbon, in which the arrival
of the second vessel (expected immediately in Pasqualigo’s letter) is
reported. This despatch is dated Oct. 17, 1501. The vessel arrived on
the 11th,—three days after the first one,—and brought the expected
cargo of slaves. Cantino says that he saw, touched, and surveyed (li
quali io ho visti, tochi et contemplati) these natives. He gives some
account of the savages, and tells the story of the voyage as he heard
the captain of the vessel relate it to the King, being present at their
interview. The caravel had been a month on her return, and the distance
was two thousand eight hundred miles,—“Questo naviglio è venuto di la
a qua in un mese, et dicono esservi 2,800 milia de distantia.” Cantino
makes no mention of the return of the first vessel, but speaks of a
third, commanded by Cortereal in person, as having decided to remain
in the new country, and to sail along its coast far enough to discover
whether it were an island or _terra firma_,—“Laltro compagno ha
deliberato andar tanto per quella costa, che vole intendere se quella è
insula, o pur terra ferma.”
Harrisse prints this interesting letter of Cantino in his _Jean et
Sébastian Cabot_ (pp. 262-264). Cantino appears to have also sent
his master a map showing the new discoveries. This map Harrisse has
since reproduced with a commentary, in his work on the Cortereals, as
explained in the second volume of the present history.
It should be noted that Harrisse counts three voyages of Gaspar
Cortereal,—the first, without result, before May, 1500; the second,
between May and December of that year; and a third, sailing in January,
1501,—the return of two of whose vessels in the following October is
related by Pasqualigo and Cantino.[19]
The confusion of the voyages continued. The Spanish historians and
those of Italy, knowing, perhaps, of only one, or getting their
information from the _Paesi_ and the maps, speak of but one expedition.
Gomara, whose work was published at Saragossa in 1552-1553,[20] says
that Cortereal was seeking a northwest passage, but failed to find it;
that he gave his name to the islands at the mouth of the St. Lawrence
in 50° N.; and that, dismayed at the snow and ice, he returned home
with about sixty of the natives whom he had captured.[21] Herrera,
who published his History early in the next century,[22] gets his
information from Gomara. Peter Martyr does not mention the Cortereals.
Turning to Italy, we find in Ramusio an account of Cortereal in the
third volume of his great collection of voyages,[23] published in 1556,
at fol. 417. Here, in an introductory discourse, written by Ramusio
himself, “sopra la terra ferme dell’ Indie Occidentali,” it is stated
that Gaspar Cortereal was the first captain who went to that part of
the New World which “runs to the north,” in 1500, with two ships, in
search of a shorter passage to the Spice Islands; that he penetrated
so far north as to get into a region of great cold, discovering at 60°
a river filled with snow, which was called the “Rio Nevado;” that he
found inhabited islands to which he gave names, etc.
Even down to modern times the distinction between the voyages has
not been recognized. Biddle, Humboldt, and others speak of only one
expedition. The Portuguese authorities, however, are explicit in the
matter. In 1563 there was published at Lisbon a volume of navigations
and discoveries written by Antonio Galvano, who had died a few years
before.[24] Galvano was born at Lisbon in 1503. He went, a young man,
to India, and distinguished himself there, having command of the
expedition which reduced the Moluccas to Portuguese rule, and becoming
the governor of Ternate,—the largest of these islands. He was recalled
home, and coldly received by the King. Becoming indigent, he was
forced to take refuge in a hospital, where he finally died in 1557.
His papers were bequeathed to a friend, Don Francisco y Sousa Tavares,
who prepared the volume for the press. Galvano gives a good account
of the expedition of Gaspar Cortereal, clearly dividing it into two
voyages; and he tells also of Miguel Cortereal’s attempt to discover
his brother’s fate. The original Portuguese text is very rare. Hakluyt
published a translation of it in 1601,[25] and states in his Dedication
of that book to Sir Robert Cecil that he could not succeed in finding
a copy of the original. The translation was made, he says, “by some
honest and well-affected marchant of our nation, whose name by no
meanes I could attaine unto, and that, as it seemeth, many yeeres ago.
For it hath lien by me above these twelve yeeres.” In 1862 the Hakluyt
Society of London reprinted this translation under the editorial
supervision of Vice-Admiral Bethune. In this edition corrections of the
English version are noted, and the whole Portuguese text is given, page
for page, from a copy of the original in the Carter-Brown Library. The
passage relating to the Cortereals is found at pages 96, 97, of this
Hakluyt Society’s volume.[26]
The Chronicle of King Emanuel, by Damiano de Goes, appeared at Lisbon
in 1565-1567.[27] Goes was born in 1501, and died about 1573. He was
employed in the diplomatic service of Portugal in Flanders, Denmark,
and other countries, and travelled extensively. Galvano considered
him, as a traveller, worthy of mention in his work, and says that he
visited England, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Muscovy, and Norway.
“He did see, speake, and was conuersant with all the kings, princes,
nobles, and chiefe cities of all Christendome in the space of 22
yeeres (occupied in the work); so that by reason of the greatnes of
his trauell I thought him a man woorthie to be here remembred.”[28]
He became afterward historiographer of Portugal, and was placed
in charge of the public archives. But he fell under the ban of the
Inquisition, and died in obscurity. His account of the Cortereals,
which is clear and of great value, from the learning of the writer and
from his excellent opportunities to inform himself, is given in the
sixty-seventh chapter of the first part of the Chronicle, at pp. 87,
88.[29]
Hieronymus Osorius (as his name is Latinized), the Bishop of
Silves,—known sometimes as the Portuguese Cicero, from the elegance
of his style,—published his _De rebus Emmanuelis_ in 1571.[30] He was
born in 1506, and lived until 1580. His writings include treatises on
philosophy and theology, as well as works of history. In the Chronicle,
under date of 1503, he gives a full account of the Cortereal voyages,
including the search expedition sent out by the King that year, and the
proposition of the eldest brother to equip a new exploration. The story
may be found at p. 63 of the edition of 1586.
Oscar Peschel and Friedrich Kunstmann, in Germany, used these
Portuguese authorities freely in their accounts of the Cortereals.
Peschel’s book, an excellent one, _Geschichte des Zeitalters der
Entdeckungen_, was published at Stuttgart in 1858, and went to a second
edition in 1877. The discoveries of the Portuguese are treated in
the ninth chapter of the second book.[31] Kunstmann’s work, of great
learning and research, _Die Entdeckung Amerikas_, was published at
Munich in 1859 by the Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences, as part of
the centennial commemoration (March 28, 1859) of its foundation. In
addition to the printed authorities, Kunstmann instituted searches
among the manuscript archives at Lisbon. He had the pretended early
voyage of Joâo Vaz Cortereal examined, and ascertained that there was
no foundation for it.[32] He found the letter of Miguel Cortereal,
written Aug. 6, 1501, to Christovâo Lopez, which has been used in the
preceding narrative; and that brother’s agreement with the King, Jan.
15, 1502, by which the grant previously made to Gaspar was continued to
Miguel.[33]
An excellent account of the Cortereal voyages, based largely upon
Kunstmann’s researches, is given by Dr. Kohl in the fifth chapter of
his _Discovery of Maine_.[34] At the first session of the International
Congress of “Américanistes,” held at Nancy in July, 1875, M. Luciano
Cordeiro, professor in the Institut at Coïmbre, presented, through
M. Lucien Adam, an elaborate essay on the share of the Portuguese in
the discovery of America. M. Cordeiro’s paper shows great industry
and research, but it should be read with caution, as his patriotism
sometimes exceeds his discretion. He looks at everything with the
distorted vision of an enthusiastic lover of his native land.[35]
With Kunstmann’s _Entdeckung_, the Bavarian Academy published, under
the care of that gentleman, Karl von Spruner, and Georg M. Thomas,
an elegant atlas of thirteen maps in beautifully executed colored
fac-similes. Portions of three of these maps relating to the Cortereals
are given in a greatly reduced form, without the brilliant colors, by
Dr. Kohl, in the Appendage to his chapter on these navigators. The
first of these is a Portuguese chart, made about 1504 by an unknown
hand. The southern part of Greenland is laid down upon it without a
name; and farther to the west appears a considerable extent of country,
answering, perhaps, to parts of our Labrador and Newfoundland, which
bears the name “Terra de cortte Reall.”[36] The second chart, made by
Pedro Reinel at about the same period, shows only Portuguese names
and gives the Portuguese flag on that part of America visited by the
Cortereals. Reinel was a Portuguese pilot of eminence, who afterward
entered the Spanish service. The third map, also of Portuguese origin,
of about the year 1520, although its exact date and its author’s
name are unknown, contains at Labrador these words: “terram istam
portugalenses viderunt atamen non intraverunt” (“The Portuguese saw
this country, but did not enter it”); and again at a place farther west
occurs the legend: “Terram istam gaspar corte Regalis portugalensis
primo invenit, et secum tulit hōīes silvestres et ursos albos. In ea
est maxiā multitudo animalium et avium necnon et pescium. qui anno
sequenti naufragium perpessus nunquam rediit: sic et fratri ejus
micaeli anno sequenti contigit” (“This country was first discovered
by Gaspar Cortereal, a Portuguese, and he brought from there wild and
barbarous men and white bears. There are to be found in it plenty of
animals, birds, and fish. In the following year he was shipwrecked, and
did not return: the same happened to his brother Michael in the next
year”).[37]
* * * * *
The original authorities for the early French expeditions have,
unhappily, not been preserved, or they still lie hidden in some dusky
receptacle, baffling all search for them. The Breton fishermen perhaps
wrote no accounts of their voyages across the Atlantic; but we might
hope for some authentic reports of the voyages of Denys, Aubert, and
others, made under the auspices of the rich and powerful Angos. The
archives of Dieppe, however, were destroyed at the bombardment of that
town in 1694, and those of La Rochelle met a similar fate.
The earliest mention of these transatlantic voyages that we now find
occurs in a discourse attributed to a great French captain of Dieppe,
preserved in an Italian translation by Ramusio, in his collection
of voyages.[38] This discourse gives a summary description of the
new countries, and a very brief mention of their discoverers. From
internal evidence it appears to have been written in 1539. Ramusio, in
introducing it, expresses his regret that he could not ascertain the
name of its author. M. Louis Estancelin published in 1832 a journal
of the voyage made by Jean Parmentier to Sumatra in 1529, which
corresponds so exactly with the details of a similar voyage in the
great captain’s discourse as to make it evident that Parmentier was
the person described by Ramusio under that title.[39] This discourse
mentions the voyages of Denys and Aubert, and speaks of Verrazano
as the discoverer of Norumbega. From this source other writers have
generally drawn their authority for these early voyages. The Chronicle
of Eusebius,[40] however, contains an account of the visit of American
savages to Rouen in 1509; and there is a curious bas-relief over a
tomb in the Church of St. Jacques at Dieppe, in which American natives
are represented.[41] Charlevoix speaks of the map which Jean Denys is
said to have made.[42]
The authorities for the voyage of Verrazano are two copies of his
letter, written to the King of France from Dieppe July 8, 1524, on
his return from the voyage. Both of these are, however, Italian
translations of the letter, the original of which does not exist. One
was printed by Ramusio in 1556, in the third volume of his collection
of voyages.[43] The other was found many years later in the Strozzi
Library (the historical documents in which were afterward transferred
to the Magliabechian, now merged in the National Library) in Florence,
and was first published in 1841 by the New York Historical Society,
with a translation made by Dr. J. G. Cogswell.[44] This contained a
Cosmographical Appendix not in the copy printed by Ramusio. The earlier
printed version was translated into English by Hakluyt for his _Divers
Voyages_, which appeared in London in 1582, and was incorporated by
him into his larger collection published in 1600.[45] Dr. Cogswell’s
translation was reprinted in London by Dr. Asher in his _Henry Hudson
the Navigator_, prepared for the Hakluyt Society in 1860.[46] Dr. Asher
considers the Cosmographical Appendix a document of great importance.
With this Strozzi copy there was found a letter written by one Fernando
Carli from Lyons, Aug. 4, 1524, to his father in Florence, accounting
for sending Verrazano’s letter, which Carli thought would interest
his countrymen. This letter of Carli was first printed in 1844, with
the essay of George W. Greene on Verrazano, in the _Saggiatore_ (i.
257), a Roman journal of history and philology. Professor Greene, who
was the American Consul at Rome, had been instrumental in obtaining
the Verrazano letter for the New York Society, and had previously
published his essay in the _North American Review_ for October, 1837.
He reprinted it in his _Historical Studies_. Carli’s letter may be
consulted in English translations in Mr. Smith’s, Mr. Murphy’s, and Mr.
Brevoort’s essays on Verrazano.
References to the voyage occur occasionally in French, English, and
Spanish authors;[47] and it was not until within a few years that any
doubt was thrown upon the authenticity of the narrative.
In October, 1864, Mr. Buckingham Smith, an accomplished scholar,
who had been secretary of the American Legation at Madrid, read a
paper upon this subject before the New York Historical Society,
afterward published the same year under the title, _An Inquiry into
the Authenticity of Documents concerning a Discovery in North America
claimed to have been made by Verrazzano_. Mr. Smith’s death interrupted
an enlarged and revised edition of this essay, which he was urged to
prepare.[48] Mr. J. Carson Brevoort presented a paper on Verrazano,
taking an opposite view, to the American Geographical Society, in
1871, which he printed three years later, entitled _Verrazano the
Navigator_.[49] This was followed by the appearance, in 1875, of
Mr. Henry C. Murphy’s _The Voyage of Verrazzano_, in which he makes
an able plea against the genuineness of the accounts of the voyage.
This book caused considerable discussion, and has been answered
several times. It remains, I think, the last word on that side of the
question,—except that Mr. Bancroft has omitted all notice of Verrazano
in the revised edition of his _History of the United States_, and the
editors of Appleton’s _American Cyclopædia_ seem to adopt Mr. Murphy’s
conclusions. Mr. Murphy’s book was reviewed by Harrisse in the _Revue
critique_ for Jan. 1, 1876, and his conclusions were accepted with
some reserve. It was noticed unfavorably by Mr. Major in the London
_Geographical Magazine_ (iii. 186) for July, 1876 (copied from the
_Pall Mall Gazette_ of May 26, 1876), and by the Rev. B. F. De Costa
in the _American Church Review_ of the same date. In 1878-1879 papers
on this subject by De Costa appeared in the _Magazine of American
History_, which were afterward collected and revised by their author,
and issued, with the title, _Verrazano the Explorer_, in 1881. This
work contains an exhaustive bibliography of the subject, to which
reference should be made.[50] In this same year, 1881, M. Cornelio
Desimoni, vice-president of the “Società Ligure di Storia Patria,”
printed in the fifteenth volume of the _Atti_ of that Society a second
_Studio_ on Verrazano, in which he takes strong ground in favor of
the genuineness of the voyage. This essay had been presented to the
third congress of “Américanistes,” which met at Brussels in 1879. M.
Desimoni had previously contributed to the _Archivio Storico Italiano_
for August, 1877, an article upon this navigator,[51] but was able to
review Mr. Murphy’s book only from notices he had seen of it. In a note
at the end of his paper he states that he had procured a copy, and, so
far from finding any reason to modify the views he had expressed, he
thought that he could find in Mr. Murphy’s essay additional arguments
for the authenticity of the voyage. The second _Studio_ was followed
by what M. Desimoni modestly calls a _Third Appendix_ (the _Studio_
having two Appendices printed with it). This is a paper of considerable
importance, as it contains the reproduction of the map of which I shall
speak later.[52]
Hieronimo da Verrazano, the brother of the navigator, made about 1529
a large _mappamundi_, on which the discoveries of Giovanni are laid
down.[53] This map is preserved in the Borgiano Museum of the College
“di Propaganda Fide” in Rome. It is not certain that the map is an
original; and it was first mentioned by Von Murr in his _Behaim_,
Gotha, 1801, p. 28, referring to a letter of Cardinal Borgia of Jan.
31, 1795, regarding it. It was again referred to in Millin’s _Magazin
encyclopédique_, vol. lxviii. (1807); but general attention was first
directed to it by M. Thomassy in 1852, in a communication published in
the _Nouvelles Annales des Voyages_.[54] Mr. Brevoort[55] has given
a description of it, which he prepared from two photographs, much
reduced in size, made for the American Geographical Society in 1871.
These photographs were not large enough nor sufficiently distinct to
allow the names of places on the American coast to be read. This North
American section of the map was first given with the names by Dr.
De Costa, who had made a careful examination of the original during
a visit to Rome, in the _Magazine of American History_ for August,
1878.[56]
This map is not dated; but the following legend, placed at the position
of Verrazano’s discoveries, fixes the date for 1529: “Verrazana
sive nova gallia quale discoprì 5 anni fa giovanni da verrazano
fiorentino per ordine e Comandamento del Cristianissimo Re di Francia”
(“Verrazana, or New Gaul, which was discovered five years ago by
Giovanni di Verrazano, of Florence, by the order and command of the
most Christian King of France”).
One of the most interesting of the maps which show the traces and
influence of Verrazano’s voyage is the copper globe known as the
globe of Ulpius, from its maker, Euphrosynus Ulpius, constructed (as
appears by an inscription on it) in 1542. This was found in Spain by
the late Buckingham Smith, and bought for the New York Historical
Society in 1859 by Mr. John D. Wolfe. Mr. Smith prepared a paper on
this globe, which was printed, with a map of the portion relating to
North America, in the _Historical Magazine_ in 1862.[57] Dr. De Costa
published, in the _Magazine of American History_ for January, 1879,
an excellent account of the globe of Ulpius, with a representation
of one hemisphere, which, he says, “without being a fac-simile, is
nevertheless sufficiently correct for historical purposes, and may
be relied upon.”[58] On this globe, between Florida and the “Regio
Baccalearum,” we find this inscription, covering a large extent of
territory: “Verrazana sive Nova Gallia a Verrazano Florentino comperta
anno Sal MD.” (“Verrazana, or New Gaul, discovered by Verrazano the
Florentine, in the year of Salvation MD.”). It will be observed that
the date has been left incomplete.
Other maps showing traces of Verrazano’s voyage are enumerated by Kohl,
Brevoort, and De Costa, the account by the last-named being the latest,
and perhaps the most complete.[59]
* * * * *
The controversy about this letter and voyage of Verrazano has excited
so much interest, that it is well to give a concise summary of Mr.
Murphy’s objections to the genuineness of the voyage, and to consider
with equal brevity some of the replies to these objections, and the
additional evidence for the support of the narrative which has been
discovered since the date of Mr. Murphy’s essay.
The conclusions which Mr. Murphy seeks to establish are set forth in
the following _brief_:—
“That the letter, according to the evidence upon which its existence
is predicated, could not have been written by Verrazzano; that the
instrumentality of the King of France in any such expedition of
discovery as therein described is unsupported by the history of that
country, and is inconsistent with the acknowledged acts of Francis and
his successors, and therefore incredible; and that its description of
the coast and some of the physical characteristics of the people and
of the country are essentially false, and prove that the writer could
not have made them from his own personal knowledge and experience,
as pretended; and, in conclusion, it will be shown that its apparent
knowledge of the direction and extent of the coast was derived from
the exploration of Estévan Gomez, a Portuguese pilot in the service of
the King of Spain; and that Verrazzano, at the time of his pretended
discovery, was actually engaged in a corsairial expedition, sailing
under the French flag, in a different part of the ocean.”[60]
Mr. Murphy argues, first, that the letter is not genuine, because no
original has ever “been exhibited, or referred to in any contemporary
or later historian as being in existence; and, although it falls within
the era of modern history, not a single fact which it professes to
describe relating to the fitting out of the expedition, the voyage,
or the discovery, is corroborated by other testimony, whereby its
genuineness might even be inferred.”[61] He considers it “highly
improbable” that there could have been a French original of the letter,
from which two translations were made, with an interval of twenty-seven
years between them, “and yet no copy of it in French, or any memorial
of its existence in that language, be known.”[62] As the Carli copy
contains a Cosmographical Appendix not in the Ramusio text, Mr. Murphy
assumes that Ramusio took his version from the Carli manuscript,
revising it, and changing its language to suit his editorial taste.
Later in his book he goes farther, and accuses Ramusio of suppressing
a fact here and adding another there, to make the Verrazano narrative
agree with other documents in his possession. As Carli’s letter to his
father covered his copy of Verrazano’s letter, the inquiry is narrowed
down to a question of the authenticity of the Carli letter. Mr. Murphy
argues that this letter cannot be genuine, because it was written by
an obscure person, at a great distance from the French Court, and from
Dieppe (the port from which Verrazano wrote), only twenty-seven days
after the date of the letter which it pretended to enclose.
Mr. Murphy, in the next division of his argument, asserts that no such
voyage was made for the King of France:—
“Neither the letter, nor any document, chronicle, memoir, or history
of any kind, public or private, printed or in manuscript, belonging
to that period or the reign of Francis I., who then bore the crown,
mentioning or in any manner referring to it, or to the voyage and
discovery, has ever been found in France; and neither Francis
himself, nor any of his successors, ever acknowledged or in any
manner recognized such discovery, or asserted under it any right to
the possession of the country; but, on the contrary, both he and they
ignored it, in undertaking colonization in that region, by virtue of
other discoveries made under their authority, or with their permission
by their subjects.”[63]
He claims that the accounts of Verrazano’s voyage given by French
historians all show internal evidence that the information was derived
from Ramusio. The life of Francis I., he further says, is a complete
denial of the assertion that Verrazano’s voyage was made by his
direction. Francis sent out the expeditions of Cartier and of Roberval,
and yet never recognized the discovery made by Verrazano. And the
map, sometimes called that of Henry II. (the date of which, however,
has been supposed to be some years earlier than the accession of that
monarch in 1547), an official map displaying all the knowledge the
French Court possessed of the American coast, is destitute of any trace
of Verrazano.[64]
Mr. Murphy considers next what he calls the misrepresentations in the
letter in regard to the geography of the coast. Only to one place, an
island, is a name given. A very noticeable omission is that of the
Chesapeake Bay, which could not have been overlooked by an explorer
seeking a passage to Cathay; and not even the named island really
exists: there is none on the coast answering its description.
He next undertakes to show that the letter claims the discovery of
Cape Breton and the southerly coast of Newfoundland; and that Ramusio,
knowing this claim to be false, “deliberately” interpolated into his
text a clause to limit Verrazano’s discoveries to the point where those
of the Bretons began.
Mr. Murphy argues next that “the description of the people and
productions of the land [were] not made from the personal observation
of the writer of the letter. What distinctively belonged to the natives
is unnoticed, and what is originally mentioned of them is untrue.”[65]
He thinks that all the details given of Indian manners and customs may
have been copied from well-known narratives of other visits to other
parts of America, and instances a source whence they may have been
drawn. Fault is found with Verrazano’s letter because it neglects to
mention such peculiarities of the Indians as wampum, tobacco, and,
“most remarkable omission of all,” the bark canoe. The falsity of the
narrative, made probable by these omissions, is rendered certain by
the positive statement of a radical difference in complexion between
the tribes found in different parts of the country.[66] And, again,
the condition in which plants and vegetation are described is equally
absurd and preposterous. And so both in the case of the color of the
natives and in that of the conditions of the grapes, Ramusio, says Mr.
Murphy, is obliged to alter the text of the narrative to make these
stories probable.
The extrinsic evidence in support of the Verrazano discovery is next
considered. As Mr. Murphy knew this evidence, it consisted of two
pieces,—the Verrazano map, and the discourse of the great French
sea-captain. The map was known, at the time of the printing of Mr.
Murphy’s essay, only by description and by two inadequate photographs.
Our present information about this map is so much greater, that Mr.
Murphy’s account of it may be passed over until the map itself is
described, later. The French captain’s discourse is known only in the
Italian translation printed by Ramusio, and placed in his third volume,
immediately after the Verrazano letter. Mr. Murphy dismisses this piece
of evidence with few words. Finding in the discourse a clause relating
to Verrazano, he at once concludes that Ramusio interpolated it, to
make this document consistent with the letter.
A skilled advocate, after proving to his own satisfaction the falsity
of a document, likes to find some genuine story which may have served
the concocters of the falsehood as a model and storehouse for their
lies. He wants also to complete his case by showing the motive for the
forgery. This motive Mr. Murphy finds in the civic pride of Florence.
All the evidence in favor of the story is traceable, he says, to
Florence. As for the model and source of the letter, he discovers
these in an attempt “to appropriate to a Florentine the glory which
belonged to Estévan Gomez, a Portuguese pilot ... in the service of
the Emperor.” He gives the voyage of Gomez in pretty full details. The
landfall occurred on the coast of South Carolina. Thence he ran the
coast northwardly to Cape Breton, where he turned and retraced his
track as far as Florida, returning to Spain by way of Cuba. Mr. Murphy
brings forward the map of Ribero, made in 1529, which he claims as an
official exhibition of the discoveries of Gomez, and which he thinks
was used in the construction of the Verrazano letter, because the
several courses and distances run, as described in the letter, agree
with similar divisions on the map.[67]
Mr. Murphy adds a concluding chapter, in which he gives the true
history of the life of Verrazano, as he gathers it from authentic
sources. Beyond his birth and parentage nothing is perhaps certainly
known, except his career as a French corsair, under the name of Juan
Florin or Florentin. In this capacity he made several rich captures
from the Spanish and Portuguese, notably the treasure sent home by
Cortes in 1523. Mr. Murphy thinks that a passage in a letter of the
Portuguese ambassador in France, which appears to refer to preparations
for a voyage of discovery about this time, is really an allusion to the
proposed raid, the other being used by the French as a cloak or cover.
At all events, he says, Verrazano cannot have been in two places at
once,—on the coast of America, or on his return from Newfoundland
to France, and at the same time have taken a ship on her way from
the Indies to Portugal. He cites, as authority for this _alibi_, a
statement of the capture of a treasure ship brought by a courier from
Portugal, and mentioned in a letter of Peter Martyr, dated August 3,
1524.[68] Mr. Murphy then closes with an account of the capture and
execution of Florin, or Verrazano.
Mr. Murphy’s argument is an ingenious and able one; and the book,
having never been published, is not within the reach of all.[69]
To the objections named in the first divisions of Mr. Murphy’s
argument,—that the letter could not have been written by Verrazano,
and that no such voyage or discovery was made for the King of
France,—replies suggest themselves very easily. We have no originals
of many important documents, and yet do not doubt their general
accuracy,—the letters of Columbus and Vespucius, for instance; the
original French of Ribault; and, to come closer to Mr. Murphy, where is
the report of Gomez’ voyage? There is none; and its only supports are
an occasional not too flattering reference in the historians, and a map
made by another hand. The despised voyage of Verrazano rests upon both
a personal narrative and a map, the work of a brother.[70]
Mr. Murphy himself furnishes corroborative testimony to the probable
truth of Verrazano’s voyage. He cites a passage from Andrade’s
Chronicle of John III., then King of Portugal. By this it appears that
John learned that one “Joâo Varezano, a Florentine,” had offered to
the King of France to “discover other kingdoms in the East which the
Portuguese had not found, and that in the ports of Normandy a fleet
was being made ready under the favor of the admirals of the coast and
the dissimulation of Francis, to colonize the land of Santa Cruz,
called Brazil,” etc. The Portuguese King lost no time in sending a
special ambassador, João da Silveyra, to remonstrate; and Mr. Murphy
prints a letter from him to his sovereign, dated April 25, 1523, in
which he says: “By what I hear, Maestro Joâo Verazano, who is going
on the discovery of Cathay, has not left up to this date for want of
opportunity, and because of differences, I understand, between himself
and men; and on this topic, though knowing nothing positively, I have
written my doubts in accompanying letters. I shall continue to doubt,
unless he take his departure.”[71]
His Appendix contains also the agreement made by Admiral Chabot with
Verrazano and others to “equip, victual, and fit three vessels to make
the voyage for spices to the Indies.” Of this expedition Verrazano
was to be chief pilot. Chabot was created admiral in March, 1526,
which settles the date of this agreement. All these documents Mr.
Murphy is obliged to twist into attempts to cover attacks on Spanish
or Portuguese commerce by pretended voyages to the West. Is it not
easier to take the simple meaning which they carry on their face?
This agreement with the Admiral is supported by two documents first
printed by M. Harrisse.[72] In the first Giovanni appoints his brother
Jerome his attorney during the voyage to the Indies; the second is an
agreement with one Adam Godefroy, _bourgeois_ of Rouen, in reference
to some trading contemplated in the voyage.[73] Dr. De Costa brings
forward also another document relating to Verrazano, dated “the last
day of September, 1525,” found in the archives of Rouen; and M. Margry
states that he has a letter written at Paris, Nov. 14, 1527, in which
Verrazano is said to be preparing to visit America with five ships.[74]
And here, too, a reference should be made to the visit of Verrazano
to England with some map or globe, as mentioned more than once by
Hakluyt.[75]
There is yet hope that the original of the Verrazano letter may be
discovered. Dr. De Costa thinks that he has evidence of its probable
existence at one time in Spain; and also that it was used by Allefonsce
in 1545,—eleven years before the publication by Ramusio.[76] There
certainly seems no greater improbability in the supposition of two
independent translations, Carli’s and Ramusio’s, from a single
original, now lost, than in the assumption that Ramusio rewrote
the Carli text and omitted the cosmographical appendix. Indeed Mr.
Murphy’s charge, renewed at intervals in his essay as his theory of
the fabrication of the letter requires,—that Ramusio was guilty of
almost fraudulent editing,—has no foundation. The reputation of the
Italian editor stands too high to be easily assailed; and as he was not
a Florentine, motive for the deceit is lacking. A careful collation
of the verbal differences between the versions is said to support the
theory that they are separate translations of one original.[77] And M.
Desimoni, presumably an exact scholar of his own language, asserts that
a philological examination of the two texts shows that, if either is a
_rimaneggiato_ (worked over) copy, it is Carli’s, and not Ramusio’s.[78]
As to the genuineness of Carli’s letter to his father, the epistle
contains a reference to the expected arrival of the King at Lyons,
fixing its date, and giving thereby internal evidence of its reality.
There is really no improbability in the statement that Verrazano had
sent a copy of his letter to the Lyons merchants, and it is very easy
to suppose Carli in the employ, or enjoying the friendship, of one or
more of these merchants. The government of France had not been extended
over the seaports long enough to make it any breach of privilege to
communicate the results of a voyage to others than the King. And, as
Mr. Major observes, in regard to the great distance between Dieppe and
Lyons, “it would be a poor courier who could not compass that distance
in twenty-seven days.”[79]
[Illustration: AN AUTOGRAPH OF FRANCIS I.]
A reason for the failure of the Verrazano letter to make any impression
on the French King, or to influence his subsequent action in reference
to American discoveries and colonization, is found in the peculiar
circumstances of Francis at this time. Engaged in constant wars,
almost from the date of his accession to the throne, he was, in the
summer of 1524, hurrying south to defend Provence from the attack of
the Constable de Bourbon and the Marquis of Pescara, who had obtained
permission of Charles V. to invade it. Many towns, the capital, Aix,
among them, soon submitted to the Imperial forces; Marseilles was hotly
besieged, and only relieved by the close approach of Francis with his
army. Now the Queen-Mother was renamed Regent of France, and the war
transferred to Italy, where, at the battle of Pavia, Feb. 24, 1525,
Francis was defeated and taken prisoner. The following year was spent
in captivity in Spain. On his release he at once broke his plighted
faith, to renew the bitter struggle with the Emperor. For the time
there could be thought or plans for nothing but war. Verrazano and his
discovery were entirely forgotten at Court.
To Mr. Murphy’s objections founded on the misrepresentations of the
coast geography, and the mistakes and omissions in the description of
the people, contained in the letter, it is sufficient to answer that
that gentleman mistakes the character of the letter, and demands more
from it than he has a right to expect. “We do not quite see,” says Mr.
Major, “why the first description of a country should be the only one
expected to be free from imperfections.”[80] All the accounts of the
early visits to this country have mixed with the general truth of the
narrative more or less absurd and improbable statements. Dr. Kohl says:
“It is well known that the old navigators in these western countries
very often saw what they wished to see.”[81] As for the omission to
notice the Chesapeake Bay, and to describe wampum, tobacco, and the
bark-canoe, others besides Verrazano have been guilty of the same
offence.[82]
The Verrazano letter should be regarded, not as an exact, well-digested
report of the voyage (such as a modern explorer might make), but rather
as the first hasty announcement to the King of his return and of the
success of the voyage. It should be remembered also that mention is
made in it of a “little book,” called by Dr. Kohl “the most precious
part of what Verrazano wrote respecting his voyage,”[83] wherein were
noted the observations of longitude and latitude, of the currents, ebb
and flood of the sea, and of other matters which he hoped might be
serviceable to navigators. These and other notes were doubtless used by
the brother, Hieronimo, in making his map, and the abundance of names
displayed on that map is a reply to Mr. Murphy’s objection that the
letter contains but one name,—the Island of Louise.
I shall enumerate the authorities for the voyage of Gomez later in
this essay; but as Mr. Murphy finds in it the source of the forged
Verrazano letter, something must be said of it here. First, it is to
be noticed that while Mr. Murphy refuses the narrative of Verrazano’s
voyage utterly, he finds no difficulty in accepting one of Gomez’ which
is to a great degree of his own (Murphy’s) construction. Dr. Kohl and
other scholars have found it impossible to decide with any certainty
as to the extent and direction of this voyage. Mr. Murphy presents us
with full details,—a landfall in South Carolina; a coasting voyage to
the north as far as Cape Breton, a careful observation on the return
of rivers, capes, and bays; a temporary belief that he had found the
strait he was seeking in the Penobscot, or “Rio de los Gamos,” on
account of the great tide issuing from it, and a return to Spain by way
of Cuba. The authorities cited in support of these statements are Peter
Martyr’s _Decades_, Herrera, and Cespedes’ _Yslario general_,—the last
in manuscript. The extracts from Martyr and Herrera I have reserved
for another part of this chapter.[84] They do not support Mr. Murphy’s
details. The Cespedes manuscript was the subject of some remarks by
Mr. Buckingham Smith before the New York Historical Society, briefly
reported in the _Historical Magazine_.[85] Mr. Smith had not been
able to find this manuscript, but understood that it contained a full
account of the voyage of Gomez. Mr. Murphy’s note shows that he knew of
its existence in the National Library at Madrid. The director of that
library has examined this manuscript at the request of Harrisse, and
has not found in it any report of the voyage of Gomez by the navigator,
nor does it contain any detailed account of the expedition. There is a
reference which shows, perhaps, that Cespedes had seen one of Gomez’
writings.[86]
The attempt to derive the Verrazano letter from the voyage of Gomez
is called by Mr. Major the “climax of the series of Mr. Murphy’s
constructive imputations.”[87] His elaborate comparison of the courses
of Verrazano with similar divisions on Ribero’s map is open to serious
question. There are no such divisions on the map. He argues from a
knowledge of the two extreme terms of Verrazano’s voyage, and neglects
the intermediate term, the latitude of the harbor where the explorers
spent fifteen days, doubtless the most accurate latitude taken. And
even at the close of his comparison he allows that the latitudes of
Ribero’s map are wrong, and says that the map does not give a faithful
representation of the voyage of Gomez. It does not give by name the
“Rio de los Gamos” which Cespedes says Gomez discovered, although that
estuary was already drawn, in the same form given to it by Ribero,
on the earlier Weimar map of 1527, which map omits the name of Gomez
altogether.[88]
The passage from one of Peter Martyr’s letters, which Mr. Murphy
cites to prove that Verrazano was capturing a Portuguese vessel at
the time when the letter claimed him as making discoveries, is not
very conclusive. Mr. Major thinks that there was time for him to have
run down from Dieppe, after his return to that port, to the coast
of Portugal, attracted by so rich a game as one hundred and eighty
thousand ducats. But Martyr’s statement is indefinite. There are no
particulars of time or place, when or where the treasure was taken.
It is not even certain that the news brought by the courier was
more than a rumor. Martyr’s language is: “Ad aliud hac, iter fecit
regis Portugalliæ cursor, quod Florinus pyrata Gallus nauim regi
suo raptauerit ab Indis venientem, qua merces vehebãtur gemmarum et
aromatum ad ducatorum centum octoginta millium summam conqueritur.”[89]
The map of Hieronimo da Verrazano is without doubt the strongest
support of the letter and voyage of his brother Giovanni. That these
persons were brothers appears from a document dated May 11, 1526,
whereby the navigator constitutes “Jarosme de Varasenne, son frère
et heritier,” his attorney to act for him during a proposed voyage
to the Indies. This paper, first printed by M. Harrisse in 1876, is
signed “Janus Verrazanus.” Dr. De Costa gives a fac-simile of this
signature,—here reproduced,—the only known autograph of Verrazano.[90]
[Illustration]
Mr. Brevoort gives perhaps the best description of the map, and I
condense the following from his account of it. The map is on three
sheets of parchment, pasted together, and is 260 centimetres long and
130 wide (about 102 inches by 51), its length being just double the
width. It is well preserved, somewhat stained; but no part, except
coast-names, is indistinct. Its projection is the simple cylindrical
square one, in which all the degrees of latitude are made equal to
each other and to the equatorial ones. Like other maps of its period,
it has the equator drawn below the middle of the map, and shows 90° of
latitude north, and 64° south of it. In breadth it represents about
320° of longitude. There is no graduation for longitude; but the
meridians that cross the centres and sides of the two great circles
of windroses appear to be drawn seventy degrees apart. There is the
usual network of cross-lines radiating from windroses, with one great
central rose in north latitude 16°. From the centre of each rose
thirty-two lines are drawn to the points of the compass, and these
lines are prolonged to the margin of the map. One meridian is divided
into degrees of latitude of equal size, each one numbered. Close to the
upper margin there is a small scale, with a legend explaining that from
point to point there are twelve and a half leagues, each of four miles.
The scale is equal to eighteen degrees of latitude in length, and is
subdivided into six parts, each having four divisions or points.
[Illustration: THE VERRAZANO MAP.
A fac-simile of the engraving given by Brevoort, sufficient for a
general outline.]
Mr. Brevoort next gives a careful account of the representation of
different parts of the world upon this map. Passing somewhat rapidly
over the eastern hemisphere, which appears to be generally drawn from
the most recent authorities, he takes up the western in some detail.
The latitudes of the map are wrong; all the West India Islands are
placed several degrees too high, thus forcing northward all other
places. Verrazano’s landfall, for instance, is here indicated at about
42°, instead of 34°, as stated in the letter. With this correction
the map shows the American coast with some approach to accuracy.
Three French standards[91] are placed (according to Brevoort) on the
territory claimed as Verrazano’s discovery,—one at the southern and
one at the northern limit, with the third at the place where the
explorers spent fifteen days. Over these three flags appears the
inscription, in capital letters, “NOVA GALLIA SIVE IUCATANET,” and the
legend, already cited, “VERRAZANA SIVE NOVA GALLIA,” etc.
Mr. Brevoort has industriously collected the scanty references to
this map after it became the property of Cardinal Borgia, with whose
collection it was bequeathed to the Propaganda in 1804; but he has been
unable to discover the time when the Cardinal procured it, and the
source whence it came to his collection. Nothing, indeed, is known of
its early history.[92]
Dr. De Costa devotes a chapter of his book to the map of Hieronimo.
After showing that the map-maker and the navigator were brothers, he
proceeds to consider the genesis of the map, and finds the beginning
of its North American portion in the Lorraine map, published in the
Ptolemy of 1513. The latitudes of the Verrazano map are recognized as
erroneous, and the observer is warned to disregard them. “When this is
done, the student will have no difficulty in recognizing the outlines
of the North Atlantic coast. For general correctness, the delineation
is not equalled by any map of the sixteenth century.” Prominent places
are identified and named.
The influence of this map upon subsequent ones is next considered, and
a long list of maps showing this influence is cited. Dr. De Costa adds
to the value of his discussion by giving tracings from several of these
maps, with fac-similes of the Verrazano map, and an enlarged drawing of
its coast-line.[93] But the strong point of his chapter, and that for
which he deserves the greatest credit, is the publication of a sketch
of Verrazano’s coast of the United States, with the names of places
attached. These names he deciphered from the original map during a late
visit to Rome. They are, of course, of the greatest value in any future
study of the map. Dr. De Costa enters somewhat into a study of these
names.[94]
M. Desimoni, while generally acknowledging his indebtedness to Dr. De
Costa’s work, and praising that gentleman’s scholarship and research,
could not accept all his inferences in the matter of the names, and
doubted some of his readings. He therefore caused a fresh examination
of the map to be made, through the kind and learned services of Dr.
Giacomo Lumbroso and Canon Fabiani. He prints, in the Appendix to his
_Studio secondo_ on Verrazano, in parallel columns, the variations
from De Costa’s readings. The great difficulty and doubt attending the
deciphering words, particularly names, in old documents and maps, is
well known to all who have attempted such work.[95]
A discovery made lately at Milan brings out a new map, and one of
great value in the discussion of Verrazano’s voyage. M. Desimoni, on
his return to Genoa from the Geographical Congress held at Venice in
September, 1881, stopped at Milan, where he visited the Ambrosian
Library to consult some maps. He was there told by the _prefetto_, the
Abbé Ceriani, that a map by Vesconte Maggiolo, hitherto supposed to
bear the date of 1587, and therefore to have been the work of one of
the second generation of this family of map-makers, was really dated
1527. By comparing the legend on this map with one of similar form and
writing on a map of 1524, it could be seen that the numeral 2 in the
first map had become an 8 by lengthening the curves of the figure until
they were finally joined. This appeared to have been done with ink of
a paler color. M. Desimoni reproduces the two legends, to show the
process.[96] He finds also certain peculiarities in the map, supposed
of 1587, which prove that it must belong to the first decades of the
century, and therefore entertains no doubt of the correctness of the
change in the date.
Fresh from studies of early American voyages, M. Desimoni examined the
North American portion of this map, particularly the coast, with as
great care as his limited time and the poor condition of the parchment
permitted. He was not a little surprised to find that the coast bore
names closely related both to the Verrazano and to other maps whose
source is yet undiscovered. He made a copy of the names, and afterward
submitted his work to Signor Carlo Prayer, of Milan, who verified it,
and also furnished as perfect a copy as it was possible to make of
the names, and a sketch of the whole coast. This was reproduced by M.
Desimoni to illustrate a paper prepared for the Società Ligure di’
Storia Patria.
This map measures about seventy-five centimetres in length by about
fifty in width,—about 29½ inches by 19½. Its legend reads: “Vesconte
de Maiollo conposuy hanc cartam in Janua anno d̄ny. 1527, die xx
Decenbris.” The place occupied in the Verrazano map by the title NOVA
GALLIA, etc., and the legend about Verrazano’s discovery, bears in this
map the name FRANCESCA, to indicate exactly a name for the whole region.
There is no mention of Verrazano by name in this map, but there is
ample evidence of a connection between Maggiolo’s map and that of
Hieronimo da Verrazano; very probably, M. Desimoni thinks, through
the intervention or medium of some chart or charts yet unknown. The
Maggiolo map has a reference to Florence, Verrazano’s birthplace, in
the names of “Valle unbrosa” (Vallambrosa), “Careggi,” etc.; references
to France and Francis in such names as “Anguileme,” “Longavilla,”
“Normanvilla,” “Diepa,” “San Germano,” and others, particularly
“Luisa,” applied to an island. The map is connected with Verrazano’s,
not only by this name, but by a great number which the two have in
common. It is true that these names are not always applied to the
same positions on the two maps: “Luisa” is a squarish island on the
Maggiolo map, and a triangular one on the other, and in the letter. The
latitudes of Maggiolo’s map are different. Florida is placed as far
south as the tropic. There is naturally some diversity in the general
direction of the coast, and in the distances from place to place. But
the substantial points are equivalent, if not identical. We have the
NOVA GALLIA in its equivalent, FRANCESCA; the same allusions in the
names to Tuscany, France, Dieppe; and an identity in the names of three
very important places,—“Luisa,” the port of refuge, and the attempt to
show Cape Cod.
M. Desimoni examines again the map of Gastoldo, first published in
the Ptolemy of 1548, inserted later in Ramusio’s third volume, and
the globe known as the globe of Ulpius, already mentioned here. Both
contain names that appear on the Verrazano map; but an examination
shows that both contain names not on that map, and each contains at
least one name not on the other. All these names are found on the
map of Maggiolo; and M. Desimoni concludes his paper with a table in
four parallel columns, in which a careful comparison is given of the
nomenclature of four maps,—the Maggiolo of 1527, the Verrazano of
1529, the Ulpius globe of 1542, and the Gastoldo of 1548.[97]
The earliest mention of the voyage of Gomez is found in Oviedo’s
_Sumario_, which was published at Toledo in 1526.[98] It is there
stated (folio xiv, _verso_) that Gomez returned in November from a
voyage begun the year before (1524, which we now know is an error);
that he had found in the north “a greate parte of lande continuate from
that which is caued Baccaleos, discoursynge towarde the West to the xl.
and xli. degree [et puesta en quarenta grados y xli, et assi algo mas y
algo menos], frō whense he brought certeyn Indians,” etc.[99]
Peter Martyr’s _Decades_ were published in a complete edition at Alcala
in 1530,[100] and his _Letters_ appeared also that same year from the
same press.[101] He speaks thus of Gomez in the Decades: “It is also
decreed that one Stephanus Gomez, who also himselfe is a skillful
navigator, shal goe another way, whereby, betweene the Baccalaos and
Florida, long since our countries, he saith he will finde out a waye
to Cataia: one onely shippe, called a Caruell, is furnished for him,
and he shall haue no other thing in charge then to search out whether
any passage to the great Chan, from out the diuers windings and vast
compassings of this our _Ocean_, were to be founde.”[102]
And later he narrates the return of the expedition, its failure to
find the strait (declaring his own opinion that Gomez’ “imaginations
were vaine and frivolous”), and tells the story about the mistake of
_cloves_ and _slaves_.[103] In a letter written in August, 1524, he
speaks also of the voyage of Gomez, but I find no mention of his return
in that publication.[104]
Gomara devotes a short chapter to Gomez. He says that his purpose
was to find a northern passage, but that he failed; and so, loading
his ship with slaves, returned home. He also relates the _clove_
anecdote.[105]
Herrera gives an account of Gomez and his voyage. He says: “Corriò
por toda aquella costa hasta la Florida, gran trecho de Tierra lo que
hasta entonces, por otros Navios Castellanos, no estaba navegado,
aunque Sebastian Gaboto, Juan Verraçano, i otros lo havian navegado....
Desde la Florida, atravesò à la Isla de Cuba, i fue à dar al Puerto de
Santiago, adonde se refrescò, i le regalò Andrès de Duero, por lo qual
el Rei le mostrò agradecimiento, bolviò à Castilla i aportò à la Coruña
diez meses despues que saliò de aquel Puerto,” etc.[106] “He ran along
that whole coast as far as Florida,—a great stretch of land which, up
to that time, had not been traversed by other Spanish ships, although
Sebastian Cabot, John Verrazano, and others had sailed along it....
From Florida he passed to the island of Cuba, and entered the port of
Santiago, where he refreshed, and Andrès de Duero regaled him, for
which the King showed gratitude. He returned to Castille, and landed at
Corunna ten months after he had sailed from that port,” etc.
Galvano, in his account of the voyage, appears to make Gomez sail along
the American coast from south to north; while Herrera, it will have
been observed, reverses this direction.[107] The testimony of Cespedes
has already been considered.[108] Dr. Kohl, in his _Discovery of
Maine_, gives a good account of Gomez’ voyage, based on careful study
of the authorities.[109]
The mutinous conduct of Gomez in the fleet of Magellan is related
by Pigafetta, who accompanied that expedition, and kept a diary,
from which he afterward made up an account of the voyage. One of the
copies of this, which existed only in manuscript, was given to Louisa,
mother of Francis I. of France, who employed Jacques Antoine Fabre to
translate it into French. He made in preference an abridgment of the
account, and this was published at Paris in 1525.[110]
For the opinion that a northern passage through America could be
discovered somewhere between Florida and the Baccalaos, Navarrete’s
work may be consulted.[111] He gives among his documents the
letter of the King commanding the attendance of Dornelos;[112] the
agreement with Agramonte in 1511, and his commission as captain of
the expedition,[113] and the grant to De Ayllon.[114] He has found
also the appointment of Gomez as pilot just before the sailing of his
expedition, Feb. 10, 1525.[115]
The Agreement of Gomez with the Emperor for the voyage is printed in
full in the _Documentos ineditos_.[116] Hernando Cortes’ letter about
the existence of the northern passage may be consulted in an English
translation in Mr. Folsom’s _Despatches of Cortes_.[117]
The discoveries of Gomez are laid down upon a map[118] of the world
made, at the command of the Emperor, in 1529 by Diego Ribero, a
well-known cosmographer, who had been sent to the Congress of Badajos
as one of the Spanish experts.
On a large section of this coast extending from Cape Breton westward
about three hundred leagues to a point where the land bends to the
south, is the legend: “TIERRA DE ESTEVAN GOMEZ la qual descubrio por
mandado de su mag^t nel anno de 1525 ay en ella muchos arboles y
fructas de los de españa y muchos rodovallos y salmones y sollos: no
han allado oro.” (“THE COUNTRY OF STEPHEN GOMEZ, which he discovered
at the command of his Majesty, in the year 1525. There are here many
trees and fruits similar to those in Spain, and many walruses and
salmon, and fish of all sorts. Gold they have not found.”)[119] This is
supposed to have been drawn from the reports of Gomez, and to contain
his coast-lines and the names which he gave to places.
Oviedo wrote in 1537 a description of the American coast from a map
made by Alonzo de Chaves the year before. He frequently cites Gomez
as his authority for the names of places, etc. This part of Oviedo’s
work remained in manuscript until its publication by the Academy of
Madrid in 1852. Dr. Kohl enters into an elaborate commentary of this
description by Oviedo, and the Chaves map, of which not even a copy has
come down to our times.[120]
* * * * *
The books of André Thevet which contain the accounts of his visit to
this country are the _Singularitez de la France antarctique_ and the
_Cosmographie universelle_.[121] Besides these works Thevet published
an account of his journey to the East, _Cosmographie du Levant_, at
Lyons, in 1554, and a series of portraits and lives of great men,
ancient and modern, in two volumes, at Paris, in 1584. He left also
several manuscripts, which are now preserved in the National Library at
Paris.
The _Singularitez_ passed to a second edition,[122] and was translated
into Italian by Giuseppe Horologgi,[123] and into English[124] by M.
Hacket. A reprint of the original edition was published at Paris in
1878, with notes, and a biographical preface by M. Paul Gaffarel of
Dijon.
The _Cosmographie_ was not reprinted, nor was it, so far as I know,
translated into any other language. In the _Magazine of American
History_ for February, 1882, however, Dr. De Costa published a
translation of the part of the book which relates to New England.
It seems quite probable that Thevet never made the voyage along the
American coast of which he pretends to give an account. He gives
nothing at all from Florida to what he calls the River of Norumbega,
and is generally very indefinite in all his statements. He may easily
have taken his stories from other travellers’ books, and it is known he
used Cartier and others; and indeed he is said to have been ill nearly
all the time of his stay in Brazil, and to have scarcely stirred out of
the island where the fort was, waiting for the ship to make ready for
home.
Thevet’s reputation for veracity is poor, particularly among his
contemporaries. Jean de Léry, who was one of the party which went out
to Villegagnon, in response to his appeal for Protestant ministers
in 1556, after Thevet’s return home, wrote an account of the Brazil
enterprise. This, first published at La Rochelle in 1578, passed
through several editions. The preface of the second edition is occupied
with an exposure of the “errors and impostures” of Thevet, and that
of the fifth edition contains more matter of the same kind. De Léry
calls Thevet “impudent menteur,” and speaks of his books as “vieux
haillons et fripperies.” Again he says, “Il fait des contes prophanes,
ridicules, pueriles, et mensonges pour tous ses escrits.” Possibly
some allowance may be made for the _odium theologicum_ of the writer,
a Calvinist, disputing with a monk; and it may be remembered that
both had been disappointed in any hopes they had entertained of the
conversion of the Indians, through the treachery of Villegagnon.
Belleforest and Fumée have also written in harsh terms about Thevet. De
Thou, a historian of far more dignified and impartial character than
these others, is nearly as abusive. He says: “Il s’appliqua par une
ridicule vanité à écrire des livres, qu’il vendait à des misérables
libraires: après avoir compilé des extraits de différents auteurs, il y
ajoutait tout ce qu’il trouvait dans les guides des chemins et autres
livres semblables qui sont entre les mains du peuple. Ignorant au-delà
de ce qu’on peut imaginer, il mettait dans ses livres l’incertain pour
le certain, et le faux pour le vrai, avec une assurance étonnante.”[125]
Even Thevet’s latest editor, M. Gaffarel, is forced to begin his
notice of the monk by allowing that he was not “un de ces écrivans de
premier ordre, qui, par la sûreté de leur critique, le charme de leur
style, ou l’intérét de leurs écrits commandent l’admiration à leurs
contemporains, et s’imposent à la postérité. Il passait, au contraire,
même de son temps, pour ne pas avoir un jugement très sur,” etc. M.
Gaffarel claims for Thevet the credit of introducing tobacco into
France, and hopes that this may balance the imperfections of his books.
Dr. Kohl gave some credence to Thevet’s narrative, but admits that he
is “not esteemed as a very reliable author.” Still, he translated the
account of his visit to Penobscot Bay, and inserted it entire in his
_Discovery of Maine_.[126] Dr. De Costa in 1870 criticised this view of
Dr. Kohl.[127]
[Illustration]
NOTE.—Harrisse, in his recent _Discovery of North America_ (p. 234),
cites for the first time a long passage about Gomez’s voyage from the
Islario of Alonso de Santa Cruz, preserved in the Imperial Library at
Vienna, and finds it to be the source whence Cespedes (see _ante_,
p. 24) drew his language; and in it he finds somewhat uncertain
proof that Gomez went as far north as the entrance of the Gulf of
St. Lawrence, and corrected some cartographical notions respecting
those waters. A map showing Gomez’s discoveries is attached to the
_Islario_, and Harrisse gives this map in fac-simile.
MAPS OF THE
EASTERN COAST OF NORTH AMERICA,
1500-1535,
WITH THE CARTOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF THE SEA
OF VERRAZANO.
BY THE EDITOR.
THE Editor has elsewhere[128] referred to the great uncertainty
attending the identification of minor coast localities in the earliest
maps. The most trustworthy interpreters recognize two important
canons,—namely, that cartographical names during a long series of
years, and at an era of exploration forerunning settlements, are
always suspicious and often delusive, as Professor Bache has pointed
out in the _Coast Survey Report_ for 1855 (p. 10); and that direction
is likely to be right, and distance easily wrong, as Humboldt has
explained. Nothing is more seductive than to let a spirit of dogmatism
direct in the interpretation of the early maps, and there is no field
of research in which predisposition to belief may lead one so wrongly.
It was largely in the spirit of finding what they sought, that the
early map-makers fashioned their charts; and their interpretation
depends quite as much on geographical views current in those days as
upon geographical facts patent in these days.
The study of early American cartography may be said to have begun
with Humboldt; and in this restricted field no one has since rendered
greater service than Dr. Kohl.[129] Mr. Brevoort, not without justice,
calls him “the most able comparative geographer of our day.”[130]
The labor which Dr. Kohl performed took expression not only in his
publications, but also in the collection of copies of early maps which
he formed and annotated for the United States Government twenty-five
years ago. His later printed books, using necessarily much of the same
material, may be riper from longer experience; but the Washington
Collection, as he formed it, is still valuable, and deserves to be
better known. It belongs to the Department of State, and consists
of not far from four hundred maps, following printed and manuscript
originals. They are carefully and handsomely executed, but with little
attempt at reproduction in fac-simile. By favor of the Secretary of
State, and through the interest of Theodore F. Dwight, Esq., the
librarian of that department, the collection has been intrusted to
the Editor for use in the present work and for the preparation of
an annotated calendar of the maps which will be printed by Harvard
University.
[Illustration: THE ADMIRAL’S MAP, 1513.]
Besides this collection in the State Department (which cost the
Government nearly $6,000), the Reports of the United States
Coast-Survey[131] describe three other collections, accompanied
by descriptive texts, which he made for that office, and which he
proposed to call collectively “The Hydrographic Annals of the United
States.” They repeat many of the maps belonging to the State Department
Collection. These supplemental collections are,—
1. On the eastern coast of the United States, giving copies of 41 maps;
the titles of 155 surveys of the coast between 1612 and 1851; a list
of 291 works on the early explorations of the coast; and an historical
memoir on such voyages, from the Northmen down.
2. On the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico falling within the United
States, giving copies of 48 maps from 1500 to 1846; the titles of 58
surveys (exclusive of those of the United States), between 1733 and
1851; a list of 221 books and manuscripts on the explorations since
1524; and an historical memoir of the explorations between 1492 and
1722.[132]
3. On the west coast of the United States, giving a bibliography of 230
titles.
There is another historical memoir by Dr. Kohl, with other copies of
the maps of the west coast, in the Library of the American Antiquarian
Society at Worcester, Mass.; and this also has been in the temporary
custody of the Editor.[133] At the time of his death Dr. Kohl was
occupied with the preparation of a history of the Search for a
Northwest Passage, from Cortes to Franklin, of which only a fragment
appeared in the Augsburg periodical, _Ausland_. It was a theme which
would naturally have embraced the whole extent of his knowledge of
early American discovery and cartography.[134]
The best printed enumeration of maps of the eastern coast of North
America is given by Harrisse for the earlier period in his _Cabots_,
and for a later period in his _Notes sur la Nouvelle France_.
[Illustration: PORTUGUESE CHART, 1503 (_after Kohl_).]
The map of La Cosa (1500) still remains the earliest of these
delineations, and a heliotype of it is given in another
volume.[135] Harrisse has lately claimed the discovery in Italy
of a Portuguese chart of 1502, showing the coast from the Gulf
of Mexico to about the region of the Hudson River, which bears
coast names in twenty-two places; but the full publication of the
facts has not yet been made;[136] and there is no present means
of ascertaining what relation it bears to a large manuscript map
of the world, of Portuguese origin, preserved in the Archives at
Munich, of which a part is herewith sketched from Dr. Kohl’s copy,
and to which he gives the conjectural date of 1503.
Dr. Kohl also reproduces it in part in his _Discovery of Maine_,
p. 174, where he dates it 1504. His two copies vary, in that the
engraved one seems to make the east and west coast-line from “Cabo
de Conception” the determinate one, while his manuscript copy gives
the completed character to the other line. It is held to record the
results of Cortereal’s voyage, and shows in Greenland a more correct
outline than any earlier chart. The other coast seems to be Labrador
and Newfoundland run into one. Peschel (_Geschichte des Zeitalters der
Entdeckungen_, p. 331) puts the date 1502 or 1503. The present Cape
Freels, on the Newfoundland coast, is thought to be a corruption of
“Frey Luis,”—here given to an island. (Cf. Kunstmann, _Die Entdeckung
Amerikas_, pp. 69, 128.) Harrisse (_Cabots_, p. 161) speaks of
Kunstmann’s referring it to “Salvat de Pilestrina,” and thinks that
the author may be “Salvat[ore] de Palastrina” of Majorca. Lelewel also
gives in his _Géographie du Moyen-Âge_ (plate 43) a map of importance
in this connection, which he dates 1501-1504, and which seems to be
very like a combination of the two Ptolemy maps of 1513. The Reinel
Chart of 1505 has been referred to in the preceding text.[137]
The _Catalogue_ of the Library of Parliament (Canada), 1858, p.
1614, gives what purports to be a copy of a “Carte de l’embouchure
du St. Laurent faite et dressée sur une écorce de bois de Vouleau,
envoyée du Canada par Jehan Denys, 1508.” Shea also mentions it in
his _Charlevoix_, i. 106, with a reference to Ramusio’s third volume.
Mr. Ben: Perley Poore, in his _Documents collected in France_, in the
Massachusetts Archives, says he searched for the original of this
map at Honfleur without success. Harrisse, _Cabots_, p. 250, says no
such map is to be found in the Paris Archives; and a tracing being
supplied from Canada, he pronounces it “absolument apocryphe,” with a
nomenclature of the last century. Bancroft (_United States_, edition of
1883, i. 14) still, however, acknowledges a map of Denys of this date.
The question of the duration of the belief in the Asiatic connection
of North America naturally falls into connection with the volume[138]
of this work devoted to the Spanish discoveries. We may refer briefly
to a type of map represented by the Lenox globe[139] (1510-1512),
the Stobnicza map[140] (1512), the so-called Da Vinci sketch[141]
(1512-1515), the Sylvanus map in the Ptolemy of 1511, the Ptolemy
of 1513, the Schöner, or Frankfort, globe of 1515,[142] the Schöner
globe of 1520,[143] the Münster map of 1532,[144] and even so late a
representation as the Honter mappamundi of 1542, reproduced in 1552 and
1560. This type represents a solitary island, or a strip of an unknown
shore, sometimes joined with the island, lying in the North Atlantic.
The name given to this land is Baccalaos, or Corterealis, or some
equivalent form of those words, and their coasts represent the views
which the voyages of the Cabots and Cortereals had established. West
and southwest of this the ocean flowed uninterruptedly, till you came
to the region of Florida and its northern extension. The Portuguese
seem to have been the first to surmise a continental connection to this
region, in a portolano which is variously dated from 1514 to 1520, and
whose legends have been quoted in the preceding text.[145]
The Portuguese claim of explorations in this region by Alvarez Fagundes
in 1521, or later, is open to question. If a map which is brought
forward by C. A. de Bettencourt, in his _Descobrimentos dos Portuguezes
em terras do ultramar nos seculos xv e xvi_, published at Lisbon in
1881-1882, represents the knowledge of a time anterior to Cartier,
it implies an acquaintance with this region more exact than we have
other evidence of. The annexed sketch of that map follows a colored
fac-simile entitled, “Fac-simile de uma das cartas do atlas de Lazaro
Luiz,” which is given by Bettencourt. The atlas in which it occurs was
made in 1563, though the map is supposed to record the explorations of
João Alvarez Fagundes, under an authority from King Manoel, which was
given in 1521. Harrisse in his _Cabots_ (p. 277) indicates the very
doubtful character of this Portuguese claim.
[Illustration: LAZARO LUIZ.]
[Illustration: VERRAZANO, 1529.]
The information concerning the Baccalaos region, which was the basis
of these Portuguese charts, seems also to have been known, in part at
least, a few years later to Hieronymus Verrazano, and Ribero, though
the former contracted and the latter closed up the passages by the
north and south of Newfoundland. The chart usually ascribed to Fernando
Columbus[146] closely resembles that of Ribero. Of the Verrazano map
sufficient has been said in the preceding text; but it may not be
amiss to trace more fully the indications there given of its effect
upon subsequent cartography, so far as it established a prototype for
a great western sea only separated at one point from the Atlantic by
a slender isthmus. Mr. Brevoort (_Verrazano_, p. 5) is of the opinion
that the idea of the Western Sea originated with Oviedo’s _Sumario_ of
1526.
[Illustration: RIBERO, 1529.
The key is as follows:—
1. Esta tierra descubrierô los Ingleses, Tiera del Labrador.
2. Tiera de los Bacallaos, la qual descubrieron los corte reales.
3. Tiera de Esteva Gomez la qual descubrio por mandado de su. mag. el
año de 1525, etc.
There are several early copies of this map. Harrisse describes the
Weimar copy as having on “Tiera del Labrador” the words, “Esta tierra
descubrieron los Ingleses no ay en ella cosa de pronecho.” Thomassy
says the Propagande copy indicates the discovery of Labrador by the
English of Bristol. See Vol. III. pp. 16, 24, and a note in chap. ix.
of the present volume. The Ribero contour of the eastern coast long
prevailed as a type. We find it in the Venice map of 1534, of which
there is a fac-simile in Stevens’s _Notes_, and in the popular Bellero
map of 1554 (in use for many years), and, with little modification, in
so late a chart as Hood’s in 1592. It was held to for the coast between
Florida and Nova Scotia long after better knowledge prevailed of the
more northern regions. It was evidently the model of the map published
by the Spanish Government in 1877 in the _Cartas de Indias_.]
Reference has already been made to the map of Maggiollo, or Maiollo
(1527), which Desimoni has brought forward, and of which a fac-simile
of his sketch is reproduced on page 39. The sea will be here observed
with the designation, “Mare Indicum.” Dr. De Costa showed a large
photograph of it at a meeting of the New York Historical Society, May,
1883, pointing out that the name “Francesca” gave Verrazano the credit
of first bestowing that name in some form upon what was afterward known
as New France.[147]
In 1870 there was published in the _Jahrbuch des Vereins für Erdkunde
in Dresden_ (tabula vii.) a fac-simile of a map of America from a
manuscript atlas preserved in Turin which gives conjecturally this
western sea, closely after the type shown below in a map of Baptista
Agnese (1536); its date is put somewhere between 1530 and 1540.
An Italian mappamundi of the middle of the sixteenth century is
described by Peschel in the _Jahresbericht des Vereins für Erdkunde
in Leipzig_, 1871, where the map is given in colored fac-simile.
Peschel places it between 1534 and 1550; and it also bears a close
resemblance to the Agnese map, as does also a manuscript map of about
1536, preserved in the Bodleian, of which Kohl, in his manuscript
collection, has a copy. This Agnese map is a part of a portolano in the
Royal Library at Dresden; and similar ones by him are said to be in the
Royal Library at Munich, in the British Museum, and in the Bodleian,
dated a few months apart. Kohl, in his _Discovery of Maine_ (pl. xiv.),
sketches it from the Dresden copy, and his sketch is followed in the
accompanying cut. An account of Agnese’s cartographical labors is given
in another volume.[148]
Perhaps the most popular map of America issued in the sixteenth century
was Münster’s of 1540, of which a fac-simile is annexed. Kohl, in
his _Discovery of Maine_ (pl. xvª), erring, as has been pointed out
by Murphy,[149] in giving a date (1530) ten years too early to this
map, and in ignorance of the Maiollo map, was led into the mistake of
considering it the earliest which has been found showing this western
sea. The map was frequently repeated, with changes of names, during
that century, and is found in use in books as late as 1572.[150]
[Illustration: MAIOLLO, OR MAGGIOLO, 1527.
The two legends, with date, are explained on p. 28.]
In the same year (1540) a similarly conjectural western sea was given
in a map of the Portuguese Diego Homem, which is preserved in the
British Museum. Kohl, in his _Discovery of Maine_ (pl. xv.), gives
this and other maps which support in his judgment the belief in the
Verrazano Sea; but Murphy (_Verrazzano_, p. 106) denies that they
contribute any evidence to that end. Of the Ulpius globe, mention has
already been made.[151] A fac-simile of Dr. De Costa’s representation
of the American portion is given herewith.
[Illustration: AGNESE MAP, 1536.
The key is as follows: 1. Terra de bacalaos. 2. (_dotted line_) El
viage de france. 3. (_dotted line_) El viage de peru. 4. (_dotted
line_) El viago a maluche. 5. Temistitan. 6. Iucatan. 7. Nombre de
dios. 8. Panama. 9. La provintia de peru. 10. La provintia de chinagua.
11. S. paulo. 12. Mundus novus. 13. Brazil. 14. Rio de la plata. 15. El
Streto de ferdinando de Magallanas.
Harrisse (_Cabots_, p. 191), referring to the dotted line of a route
to India, which Agnese lays down on this map, crossing the Verrazano
isthmus, thinks it is rather a reminiscence of Verrazano than of
Cartier. Harrisse gives the legend, “el viazo de franza.”]
There are two maps which connect this western sea, extending southerly
from the north, with the idea that a belt of land surrounded the earth,
there being a connection between Europe and Greenland, and between
Greenland and Labrador, making America and Eastern Asia identical. This
theory was represented in a map of 1544,—preserved in the British
Museum and figured[152] by Kohl in his _Discovery of Maine_ (pl. xv.),
who assigns it to Ruscelli, the Italian geographer. Another support of
the same theory is found in the “Carta Marina” of the 1548 edition of
Ptolemy (map no. 60).
Jacobo Gastaldo, or Gastaldi, was the cartographer of this edition,
and Lelewel[153] calls him “le coryphée des géographes de la peninsula
italique.” Ruscelli, if he did not make this map for Gastaldo, included
it in his own edition of Ptolemy in 1561, the maps of which have been
pointed out by Thomassy as bearing “la plus grande analogie avec celles
de la galerie géographique de Pie IV.,” while the same authority[154]
refers to a planisphere of Ruscelli (1561) as “inédit, conservé au
Musée de la Propagande.”[155]
This union of North America and Asia was a favorite theory of the
Italians long after other nations had given it up.[156] Furlani in 1560
held to it in a map, and Ruscelli, in another map of the 1561 edition
of Ptolemy, leaves the question unsettled by a “littus incognitum.”
[Illustration: MÜNSTER, 1540.]
* * * * *
Meanwhile Münster in the 1540 Ptolemy had given his idea of the western
sea by making it a southern extension of the northwest passage. This is
shown in a sketch of Münster’s 1540 map given above.
[Illustration: FROM THE ULPIUS GLOBE, 1542.]
[Illustration: CARTA MARINA, 1548.
The key is as follows:—
1. Norvegia. 11. Ganges.
2. Laponia. 12. Samatra.
3. Gronlandia. 13. Java.
4. Tierra del Labrador. 14. Panama.
5. Tierra del Bacalaos. 15. Mar del Sur.
6. La Florida. 16. El Brasil.
7. Nueva Hispania. 17. El Peru.
8. Mexico. 18. Strecho de Fernande Magalhaes.
9. India Superior. 19. Tierra del Fuego.
10. La China.]
One of the most conspicuous instances of a belief in this sea was the
Lok map of 1582, which Hakluyt published, as has been already stated,
in his _Divers Voyages_ of that year, which, being made “according to
Verarzanus’s plot,” is reproduced here from the cut already given in
the preceding volume.[157]
With Lok we may consider that the western sea vanishes, unless there
be thought a curious relic of it in the map which John White, of the
Roanoke Colony, made in 1585 of the coast from the Chesapeake to
Florida, which is preserved among the De Bry drawings in the British
Museum. The history of these drawings has been already told.[158] There
is a copy of this map in the Kohl Collection; but the annexed sketch
is taken from a fac-simile engraving given by Dr. Edward Eggleston in
_The Century Magazine_, November, 1882. It will be observed that at
Port Royal there seems to be a passage to western water of uncertain
extent,[159] which was interpreted later as an inland lake.
[Illustration: LOK’S MAP, 1582,—REDUCED.]
[Illustration: JOHN WHITE, 1585.]
Other maps of this period have no trace of such western sea, like the
protuberant “Terra del laboradore” of Bordone in 1521 and 1528;[160]
the “Terra Francesca” of the Premontré globe, now in the National
Library at Paris;[161] the northeasterly trend of the map of the monk
Franciscus;[162] the “Nova Terra laboratorum dicta” of Robert Thorne’s
map (1527);[163] Piero Coppo’s _Portolano_ of 1528, in which America
appears as a group of islands; and in the British Museum among the
Sloane Manuscripts a treatise, _De principiis astronomie_, which has
a map in which the eastern coast of America is made to consist of two
huge peninsulas, one of them being marked “Terra Franciscana nuper
lustrata,”[164] and the other, “Baccalear regio,” ending towards the
east with a cape, “Rasu.”[165]
Kunstmann in his _Atlas_ (pl. vi.) gives a map which he places between
1532 and 1540; it is of unknown authorship.
Wieser, in his _Magalhâes-Strasse_ (p. 77), points to a globe of
Schöner, the author of the _Opusculum geographicum_, in which he
claimed that “Bachalaos—called from a new kind of fish there—had been
discovered to be continuous with Upper India.”
[Illustration: NORTH AMERICA, 1532-1540 (_after Kunstmann_).]
There is a chart of Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence dated
1534, and of which Kohl gives a sketch in his _Discovery of Maine_
(pl. xviiiª). It is signed by Gaspar Viegas, of whom nothing is known.
A map, in what Harrisse[166] calls the Wolfenbüttel Manuscript, has
the legend upon Labrador: “This land was discovered by the English
from Bristol, and named Labrador because the one who saw it first was
a laborer from the Azores.” Biddle, in his _Sebastian Cabot_, p. 246,
had conjectured from a passage in a letter of Pasqualigo in the _Paesi
novamente retrovati_ of 1507 (lib. vi. cap. cxxvi.), that the name had
come from Cortereal’s selling its natives in Lisbon as slaves.
CHAPTER II.
JACQUES CARTIER AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
BY THE REV. BENJAMIN F. DE COSTA, D.D.
JACQUES CARTIER, the Breton sailor, sometimes styled “the Corsair,”
was born at St. Malo, probably in 1491. He began to follow the sea at
an early age, and soon attained to prominence. In 1534 the discovery
of a western route to the Indies being a subject that attracted great
attention, Cartier undertook an expedition, for which preparations had
been begun during the previous year.
The Treaty of Cambrai having given peace to France, the privateersmen,
or “corsairs,” found that the best excuse for their occupation was
gone; and they were ready to engage in the work of exploration opened
by Francis I. in 1524, by sending out Verrazano. Accordingly the King
appears to have accepted the plan of Cartier submitted by Chabot,
Admiral of France, and the arrangements were perfected. Cartier’s
commission for the voyage has not yet been produced, though in March,
1533, he was recognized by the Court of St. Malo as a person already
authorized to undertake a voyage to the New Land.
Cartier sailed from the ancient port of St. Malo, April 20, 1534. With
two ships of about sixty tons each, and a company, it would appear,
of sixty-two chosen men, he laid his course in the track of the old
navigators, with whom he must have been familiar. On May 10 he reached
Cape Bonavista, one of the nearest headlands of Newfoundland. Forced
by storms to seek refuge in the harbor of St. Catherine, about fifteen
miles south-southeast of Bonavista, he spent ten days in making some
needed repairs. With the return of favorable winds he resumed his
voyage, and coasted northward to the Island of Birds, which he found
surrounded by banks of broken ice and covered by an incredible number
of fowl. With these the French loaded their boats in half an hour.
There, also, they saw a large bear, “as white as any swan,” swimming
thither “to eat of the said birds.” On May 27 the ships reached the
entrance of the Straits of Belle Isle, but were obliged by the ice to
enter the neighboring harbor of Carpunt, 51° N. From Carpunt, Cartier
sailed to the Labrador coast, and, June 10, reached a harbor which he
called Port Brest. The next day being the festival of St. Barnabas,
divine service was said by the priest serving as chaplain, after which
several boats went along the coast to explore, when they reached and
named the harbors of St. Anthony, St. Servans, and Jacques Cartier.
At St. Servans the explorers set up a cross, and near by, at a place
called St. John’s River, they found a ship from Rochelle, which had
touched at Port Brest the previous night.
[Illustration:
[The familiar portrait of Cartier, of which a sketch of the head is
given in the accompanying vignette, is preserved at St. Malo, and
engravings of it will be found in Shea’s editions of _Le Clercq’s
Etablissement de la Foy and of Charlevoix’s Histoire de la Nouvelle
France_, vol. i. p. 110, and in Faillon’s _Histoire de la Colonie
Française_, vol. i.—ED.]]
The boats returned to the ships on the 13th, the leader reporting the
appearance of Labrador as forbidding, saying that this must be the
land that was allotted to Cain. In this region they found some savages
who were “wild and unruly,” and who had come “from the mainland out
of warmer regions” in bark canoes. They appear to have been the Red
Indians, or Boeotics, of Newfoundland, who were renowned as hunters,
and who excelled in the manufacture of instruments carved in ivory and
bone. Professor Dawson says that the Breton sailor here stood in the
presence of the precise equivalent of the Flint Folk of his own country.
From Port Brest the expedition crossed the Strait and “sailed toward
the south, to view the lands that we had there seen, that appeared to
us like two great islands; but when we were in the middle of the Gulf
we knew it that it was _terra firma_, where there was a great double
cape, one above the other, and on this account we called it Cape
Double.” This was Point Rich, Newfoundland. Coasting the land, amid
mists and storms, June 24 he reached a cape, which in honor of the day
he called Cape St. John,—now known as Anguille. From Anguille Cartier
sailed southwest into the Gulf, reaching the Isles aux Margoulx, the
present Bird Rocks, two of which were “steep and upright as any wall,”
where he was again impressed by the fowl, “innumerable as the flowers
on a meadow.” Twenty-five miles westward was another island, about
six miles long and as many wide, being fertile, and full of beautiful
trees, meadows, and flowers. There were sea-monsters on the shores,
which had tusks like elephants. This he called Brion Island, and the
name still remains.
At this point both Ramusio’s narrative of the voyage and the _Discovrs
dv voyage_ (1598) make Cartier say: “I think that there may be some
passage between Newfoundland and Brion Island;” but the text of the
_Relation originale_[167] reads, “between the New Land and the land of
the Bretons.” This has been accepted as teaching that Cartier at that
time did not know of the strait between Newfoundland and Cape Breton;
and it is argued that, as it afforded a shorter route from France to
Canada, he would have followed it, if he had known of its existence;
yet in 1541, when he certainly knew that strait, he took the route by
Belle Isle, as twice before. Again, on his second voyage, while passing
through the southern strait on his way to France, the narrative does
not speak of any discovery. The inference may be drawn that the passage
quoted misrepresents Cartier. Indeed, the portion of the narrative
covering the movements around Brion and Alezay Island is so confused
that one with difficulty takes in the situation. Dr. Kohl, in his
_Discovery of Maine_ (p. 326), represents Brion’s Island as the present
Prince Edward; though no map seems to bear out the statement.
Next Cartier passed to an island “very high and pointed at one end,
which was named Alezay.” Its first cape was called St. Peter’s, in
honor of the day. This, as it would appear, is the present Prince
Edward Island;[168] but the account admits of large latitude of
interpretation.
Cartier reached the mainland on the evening of the last day of June,
and named a headland Cape Orleans; next he found Miramichi Bay, or
the Bay of Boats, which he called St. Lunario. Here he had some hope
of finding a passage through the continent. On July 4 Cartier was
surrounded by a great fleet of canoes, and was obliged to fire his
cannon to drive the natives away. The next day, however, he met them on
the shore, and propitiated their chief with the present of a red hat.
These were the Micmacs, a coast tribe wandering from place to place,
fishing in the summer, and hunting in the interior during the winter.
By July 8 he reached the bay which, on account of the heat, he called
the Bay Chaleur, known by the Indians as Mowebaktabāāk, or the Biggest
Bay. Here the Micmac country ended, and the natives were of another
tribe, visitors from Canada, who had descended the St. Lawrence to
prosecute the summer fisheries.[169] They proved friendly, engaging in
trade, and showing a disposition which Cartier thought would incline
them to receive Christianity. The country was beautiful, but no passage
was found extending through the land; and accordingly he sailed
northward, reaching a place called St. Martin’s Creek, and saying that
on this coast they have “figs, nuts, pears, and other fruits.” Leaving
St. Martin’s Creek, the coast was followed to Cape Prato,—a name which
appears like a reminiscence of Albert de Prato, who was at Newfoundland
in 1527.[170] Forty natives were seen in canoes; but they were poor,
and almost in a nude condition. They appeared to be catching mackerel
in nets made of a kind of hemp. Reaching Gaspé, July 24, a large cross
was set up, with a shield attached, bearing the fleur-de-lis and the
motto: “Vive le Roi de France.” The natives, however, protested,
understanding that by setting up this _totem_ the strangers claimed
a country to which they had no right. Afterward two of the natives,
Taignoagny and Domagaya, were entrapped and made prisoners, while
presents sent to the tribe seemingly afforded satisfaction. The next
day the expedition left the land, and, sailing out once more into
the Gulf, they saw the great Island of Anticosti, when, coasting its
southern shore, they named its eastern cape St. Loys. Thence Cartier
steered over to the coast of Labrador, searching for a passage to
the west. On St. Peter’s day he was in the strait between Anticosti
and Labrador, which forms one entrance to Canada. He called it St.
Peter’s Channel; but he did not know whither it led, and accordingly
called a council. As the result, the season being now far advanced,
and the supplies running low, it was resolved to return to France, and
defer the examination of the strait to some more favorable occasion.
Cartier therefore left Anticosti, and reached White Sand Island, August
9; on the 15th, after hearing Mass, he passed through the Strait of
Belle Isle into the ocean, and laid his course for France. He had a
prosperous passage, and arrived at St. Malo early in September.
The main object of his voyage proved a failure, and a route to the
Indies was not discovered. He had approached close to the mouth of the
St. Lawrence, but was not aware of the fact. A correct knowledge of the
situation would have filled him with chagrin. As it was, he determined
to persevere; and upon reaching France he proceeded to prepare for
another voyage.
* * * * *
The representations made by the intrepid sailor had the desired
effect, and Admiral Chabot at once made known the condition of affairs
to Francis I., who signed a commission for Cartier, Oct. 30, 1534,
authorizing him to complete the exploration beyond Newfoundland. For
this purpose the King gave Cartier three ships,—the “Great Hermina,”
of about one hundred and twenty tons, to be commanded by Cartier; the
“Little Hermina,” of sixty tons, under Macé Jalobert; and a small
galley, the “Emerilon,” in charge of Jacques Maingart. The men for his
first expedition had been obtained with difficulty, the sailors of St.
Malo preferring voyages with more certain and solid results than any to
be gained in Cartier’s romantic quest. Accordingly the King authorized
him to impress criminals. In a letter to the Most Christian King,
Cartier advocated the enterprise as one destined to open new fields for
the activity of the Church, which was now beginning to suffer from the
effects of the Protestant Reformation.
On Whit-Sunday, 1535, the members of the expedition—which does not
appear to have carried a priest, but included a number of prominent
gentlemen—went, by direction of Cartier, to confession, and afterward
received the benediction of the bishop as they knelt in the choir of
the cathedral church of St. Malo. Three days later Cartier sailed.
Head-winds and violent storms opposed the little fleet, rendering
progress slow, and entailing much hardship. June 25 the ships separated
in a storm; but on July 7 the “Great Hermina,” after much tossing,
reached the Isle of Birds, on the northern coast of Newfoundland,—one
of the scenes of the previous year’s visit. The port of White Sand,
however, had been appointed the rendezvous, and thither, July 26,
Cartier went, being joined there by the rest of the fleet. Next,
crossing the strait to the Labrador coast, Cartier sailed westward,
reaching St. John’s River, August 10. He named it the Bay of St.
Lawrence,—a name afterward applied to the Gulf. August 12, he
consulted the two Indians captured the previous year, who diminished
his hope of finding a passage to the Indies, by showing that the
channel before him, named in honor of St. Peter, led to a river whose
banks rapidly contracted; while far within the interior the water was
shallow, navigation being obstructed by rapids. This, they likewise
said, was the entrance to the country of Canada. On August 18, sick at
heart by the failure to discover any passage through the continent,
Cartier sailed back to the northern shore. Three days later he named
the great island lying in the mouth of the Gulf, Assumption,[171] in
honor of the festival; and finally, disbelieving the Indians, and
hoping that the channel between Labrador and Anticosti opened to salt
water, he ordered the course to be laid toward the west, being led to
this determination by seeing many whales. Soon, however, the water
began to freshen; yet hoping, as did Champlain long after, that even
the fresh water might afford a highway to the Indies, he entered the
river, viewing the banks on either side, and making his way upward.
Erelong he saw the wonderful Saguenay pouring through its gloomy gorge,
scooped out of solid rock by ancient glaciers, and was tempted to
sail in between the lofty walls which flung down their solemn shadows
upon the deep and resistless stream. Here he met some timid natives
in canoes, engaged in hunting the seal. They fled, until they heard
the voices of his two savages, Taignoagny and Domagaya, when they
returned, and gave the French a hospitable reception. Without exploring
the Saguenay, Cartier returned to the main river, passing up to the
Isle aux Coudres, or Isle of Hazel-nuts, where he found the savages
engaged in capturing a marine monster called the “adhothoys,”—in form,
says the narrative, as shapely as a greyhound. This was the _Beluga
catadon_, the well-known white whale, whose bones are found in the
post-pliocene clay of the St. Lawrence. The manuscript of Allefonsce
says: “In the Canadian Sea there is one sort of fish very much like
a whale, almost as large, white as snow, and with a mouth like a
horse.” Continuing his ascent, Cartier met more of the natives, and at
last encountered the lord of the country, the well-known Donnacona,
who dwelt at Stadaconna (Quebec). The chief addressed the French
commander in a set oration, delivered in the native style with many
gesticulations and contortions.
Finally Cartier reached a large island, which he called Bacchus Island,
with reference to the abundance of vines; though afterward it was
given the name it now bears, the Island of Orleans. Here he anchored
his fleet, and went on in boats to find a convenient harbor. This he
discovered near Stadaconna, at the mouth of the river now known as the
St. Charles, calling it the harbor of the Holy Cross. On September
14 the ships were brought up. The French were received with great
rejoicing by all except Donnacona and the two natives, Taignoagny and
Domagaya; the latter had rejoined their old friends, and appeared
“changed in mind and purpose,” refusing to come to the ships. Donnacona
had discovered that Cartier wished to ascend the river to Hochelaga,
and he regarded this step as opposed to his personal interests.
Finally, however, a league of friendship was formed, when the two
natives returned on board, attended by no less than five hundred of the
inhabitants of Stadaconna. Still Donnacona persisted in his opposition
to Cartier’s proposed exploration; and finally dressed several members
of his tribe in the garb of devils, introducing them as delegates from
the god Cudragny, supposed to dwell at Hochelaga. The antics of these
performers did not intimidate Cartier, and accordingly, leaving a
sufficient force to guard the ships, he started with a pinnace and two
boats containing fifty men. It was now the middle of September, and the
Canadian forests were putting on their robes of autumnal glory. The
scenery was at its best, and the French were greatly impressed by the
beauty of the country. On the 28th the river suddenly expanded, and
it was called the Lake of Angoulême, in recognition of the birthplace
of Francis I. In passing out of the lake, the strength of the rapids
rendered it necessary to leave the pinnace behind; but with the two
boats Cartier went on; and, October 2, after a journey of thirteen
days, he landed on the alluvial ground close by the current now
called St. Mary, about three miles from Hochelaga. He was received by
throngs of the natives, who brought presents of corn-bread and fish,
showing every sign of friendship and joy. The next day Cartier went
with five gentlemen and twenty sailors to visit the people at their
houses, and to view “a certain mountain that is near the city.” They
met a chief, who received them with an address of welcome, and led
them to the town, situated among cultivated fields, and “joined to a
great mountain that is tilled round about and very fertile,” which
Cartier called Mount Royal, now contracted into Montreal. The town
itself is described in the narrative of Cartier’s voyage as circular
and cunningly built of wood, having a single gate, being fortified
with a gallery extending around the top of the wall. This was supplied
with ammunition, consisting of “stones and pebbles for the defence
of it.” With the Hochelagans it was the Age of Stone. Their mode of
life is well described in the narrative which, in the Italian version
of Ramusio, is accompanied by a plan of the town. Cartier and his
companions were freely brought into the public square, where the women
and maidens suddenly assembled with children in their arms, kissing
their visitors heartily, and “weeping for joy,” while they requested
Cartier to “touch” the children. Next appeared Agouhanna, the palsied
lord of Hochelaga, a man of fifty years, borne upon the shoulders of
nine or ten men. The chief welcomed Cartier, and desired him to touch
his shrunken limbs, evidently believing him to be a superior being.
Taking the wreath of royalty from his own head, he placed it upon
Cartier. Then the sick, the blind, the impotent, and the aged were
brought to be “touched;” for it seemed to them that “God was descended
and come down from heaven to heal them.” Moved with compassion, Cartier
recited a portion of the Gospel of St. John, made the sign of the
Cross, with prayer; afterward, service-book in hand, he “read all
the Passion of Christ, word by word,” ending with a distribution of
hatchets, knives, and trinkets, and a flourish of trumpets. The latter
made them all “very merry.” Next he ascended the Mount, and viewed the
distant prospect, being told of the extent of the river, the character
of distant tribes, and the resources of the country. This done, he
prepared for his return, and, amid the regrets of the natives, started
on the downward voyage.
In 1603, when Champlain reached the site of ancient Hochelaga, the
fortified city and its inhabitants had disappeared.[172] With a
narrative of Cartier in hand, he doubtless sought the imposing town
and its warlike and superior inhabitants, as later, on the banks of
the Penobscot, he inquired for the ancient Norumbega, celebrated by so
many navigators and historians. But Hochelaga, like its contemporary
capital on the great river of Maine, had disappeared, and the
Hochelagans were extinct.
On October 11 Cartier reached the Harbor of Holy Cross, where, during
his absence, the people had constructed a fort and had mounted
artillery. Donnacona and the two natives reappeared, and Cartier
visited the chief at Stadaconna, the people coming out in due form
to receive him. He found the houses comfortable after their fashion,
and well provided with food for the approaching winter. The scalps of
five human heads were stretched upon boughs, and these, Cartier was
told, were taken from their enemies, with whom they were in constant
warfare, as it would appear from their defences and from other signs.
The inhabitants of Stadaconna were nevertheless inclined to religion,
and earnestly desired to be baptized; when Cartier, who appears to have
been a good lay preacher, explained its importance,—though he could
not accede to their request, as he had with him neither priest nor
chrism. The next year he promised to provide both.
It would appear that at the outset Cartier had decided to winter in the
country and upon his return from Hochelaga preparations were made. His
experience, however, was somewhat sad, and nothing was gained by the
decision to remain, except some traffic.
In the month of December a pestilence broke out among the natives, of
whom finally the French came to see but little, as the Indians were
charged not to come near the fort. Soon afterward the same disease
attacked the French, proving to be a form of the scurvy, which at one
time reduced all but ten of Cartier’s company to a frightful condition,
while eventually no less than twenty-five died. In their distress
an image of Christ was set up on the shore. They marched thither,
and prostrated themselves upon the deep snow, chanting litanies and
penitential psalms, while Cartier himself vowed a pilgrimage to
Our Lady of Rocquemado. Nevertheless on that day Philip Rougemont
died. Cartier, being determined to leave nothing undone, ordered
a _post-mortem_ examination of the remains of this young man from
Amboise. This afforded no facts throwing light upon the disease, which
continued its ravages with still greater virulence, until the French
learned from the natives that they might be cured by a decoction made
from a tree called _ameda_. The effect of this medicine proved so
remarkable, that if “all the doctors of Montpelier and Louvain had been
there with all the drugs of Alexandria, they would not have done so
much in a year as that tree did in six days.” Winter finally wore away,
and in May, on Holy-Rood Day, Cartier set up a fair cross and the arms
of France, with the legend, “Franciscus Primus, Dei gratia Francorum
Rex regnat,” concluding the act by entrapping the King Donnacona, and
carrying him a prisoner on board his ship. The natives vainly offered a
ransom, but were pacified on being told that Cartier would return the
next year and bring back their king. Destroying one of his vessels, the
“Little Hermina,” on May 6, Cartier bade the people adieu, and sailed
down to a little port near the Isle of Orleans, going thence to the
Island of Hazel-Nuts, where he remained until the 16th, on account of
the swiftness of the stream. He was followed by the amazed savages,
who were still unwilling to part with their king. Receiving, however,
assurances from Donnacona himself that he would return in a year, they
affected a degree of satisfaction, thanked Cartier, gave him bundles of
beaver-skins, a chain of _esurguy_,[173] or wampum, and a red copper
knife from the Saguenay, while they obtained some hatchets in return.
He then set sail;[174] but bad weather forced him to return. He took
his final departure May 21, and soon reached Gaspé, next passing
Cape Prato, “the beginning of the Port of Chaleur.” On Ascension Day
he was at Brion Island. He sailed thence towards the main, but was
beaten back by head-winds. He finally reached the southern coast of
Newfoundland, giving names to the places he visited. At St. Peter’s
Island he met “many ships from France and Britain.” On June 16 he left
Cape Race, the southern point of Newfoundland, having on this voyage
nearly circumnavigated the coast of the island, and thus passed to
sea, making a prosperous voyage, and reached St. Malo July 6, 1536.
Though, according to the narrative, Cartier gave the name of St. Paul
to the north coast of Cape Breton, this appellation was on the map of
Maijolla, 1527, and that of Viegas, drawn in the year 1533. Manifestly
the narrative does Cartier some injustice.
* * * * *
Several years passed before anything more was done officially
respecting the exploration of the New Lands. Champlain assumes that
Cartier made bad representations of the country, and discouraged
effort. This view has been repeated without much examination. It is
clear that all were disappointed by finding no mines of precious
metals, as well as by the failure to discover a passage to the Indies;
yet for all this Cartier has been maligned. This appears to be so from
the statement found in the narrative of the third voyage, which opens
in a cheerful strain, the writer saying that “King Francis I. having
heard the report of Captain Jacques Cartier, his pilot-general, in
his two former voyages of discovery, as well by writing as by word of
mouth, respecting that which he had found and seen in the western parts
discovered by him in the ports of Canada and Hochelaga; and having seen
and talked with the people which the said Cartier had brought from
those countries, of whom one was King of Canada,” resolved to “send
Cartier, his pilot, thither again.” With the navigator he concluded
to associate Jean François de la Roche, Lord of Roberval, invested
with a commission as Lieutenant and Governor of Canada and Hochelaga.
Roberval was a gentleman of Picardy, highly esteemed in his province;
and, according to Charlevoix, he was sometimes styled by Francis I.
the “petty King of Vimeu.” Roberval was commissioned by Francis I. at
Fontainebleau, Jan. 15, 1540, and on February 6 took the oath in the
presence of Cardinal de Tournon. His subordinate, Cartier, was not
appointed until October 17 following, his papers being signed by Henry
the Dauphin on the 20th.
[Illustration: AUTOGRAPH OF THE DAUPHIN.]
The apparent object of this voyage is stated where the narrative
recites that it was undertaken “that they might discover more than was
done before in some voyages, and attain, if possible, to a knowledge
of the country of the Saguenay, whereof the people brought by Cartier,
as is declared, mentioned to the King that there were great riches and
very good lands.” The first and second voyages of Cartier may not have
attracted the attention of the Spaniards; but when the expedition of
1541 was in preparation Spain sought to interfere, as in the case of
Verrazano in 1523.[175] Francis anticipated this, Alexander VI. having
coolly given all America to Spain, as she eagerly claimed; and the
explanation was that the fleet was simply going to the poor region of
Baccalaos. The Spanish ambassador, knowing well that his master was too
poor to support his pretensions by force of arms, finally came to the
conclusion that the French could do no harm, while others prophesied a
failure.[176]
To carry out the voyage, a sum of money was placed at the disposal of
Roberval, who agreed with Cartier to build and equip five[177] vessels.
Soon the shipyards of St. Malo resounded with the din of labor,
and the Breton carpenters promptly fulfilled their task. Roberval,
however, had not in the mean time completed his preparations, and
yet, having express orders from the King not to delay, Cartier, with
the approval of Roberval, set sail with three or more ships, May 23,
1541. He encountered a succession of storms for three months, having
less than thirty hours of fair wind in all that time. One ship, under
the Viscount of Beaupré, kept company with Cartier, but the rest were
scattered. The fleet assembled at Carpunt, in Newfoundland, waiting in
vain for Roberval. Cartier accordingly went on, and reached the Harbor
of Holy Cross, August 23. The savages hailed him with joy, and inquired
for their chief, Donnacona, and the other captives. They were informed
that Donnacona had died in France, where he had received the faith and
been baptized, while the rest had married, and stayed there as great
lords, whereas in fact all except a little girl had died.[178] Agona,
who had ruled during the interregnum, was not at all dissatisfied, as
it left him invested with kingship; yet, as a compliment, he took the
crown of tanned leather and _esurguy_ from his own head, and placed
it upon Cartier’s, whose wrists he also adorned with his bracelets,
showing signs of joy. This, however, was mere dissimulation. Next,
Cartier took his fleet to a harbor four leagues nearer Quebec, where
he built a fort called Charlesbourg Royal. On the 2d of September Macé
Jalobert, his brother-in-law, and Etienne Noel, his nephew, were sent
back to France with two of his ships, to report the non-arrival of
Roberval. Leaving Beaupré in command at Charlesbourg Royal, Cartier
ascended the St. Lawrence, visiting on the way a lord of Hochelay. In
his previous voyage this chief had proved sincere, informing him of
the meditated treachery of Taignoagny and Domagaya. He now bestowed
upon him “a cloak of Paris red,” with yellow facings and tin buttons
and bells. Going on, Cartier passed Hochelaga, and attempted to ascend
the rapids, two of which he actually stemmed. Arriving at Hochelaga,
he found that the chief had gone to Quebec to plot against him with
Agona. Returning to Charlesbourg, he passed the winter, seeing little
of the natives. In the spring, having gathered a quantity of quartz
crystals, which he fancied were diamonds, and some thin scales of metal
supposed to be gold, he sailed for France. In the Harbor of St. John,
Newfoundland, Hakluyt says, he met Roberval, then on his way to Canada.
The “gold” was tried in a furnace, and “found to be good.” Cartier
reported the country rich and fruitful; but when ordered by Roberval
to return, he pleaded his inability to stand against the savages with
so small a number of men; while in Hakluyt we read that “hee and his
company, moued as it seemeth with ambition, because they would haue all
the glory of the discouerie of those partes themselues, stole privately
away the next night from us, and, without taking their leaues, departed
home for Bretainye.”
This, however, appears to be wrong; as at the time he is represented as
meeting Roberval at Newfoundland his chief must have been in Canada,
he having left France Aug. 22, 1541. Hakluyt’s informant was confused,
and the ships met by Roberval at Newfoundland may have been those
two despatched by Cartier to France under Jallobert and Noel during
the previous autumn, or else Cartier on his way home in June met
Sainterre.[179]
Jean François de la Roche, Lord of Roberval, in connection with
Cartier, was commissioned for his expedition by a royal patent, Jan.
15, 1540. His fleet consisted of three tall ships and a company of two
hundred persons, including women and gentlemen of quality. Sainterre
was his lieutenant, and Jean Allefonsce his pilot-general. According
to Hakluyt, he sailed from Rochelle, April 14, 1542,—more than a
year after the time originally appointed,—reaching St. John’s,
Newfoundland, June 8, where he found seventeen fishing-vessels. While
delayed here, Hakluyt says, Cartier appeared in the harbor, and
afterward left secretly, as already stated, to return to France. As a
matter of fact, however, Roberval sailed from Honfleur, Aug. 22, 1541.
We must not be misled, therefore, where Hakluyt says that on the last
day of June, 1542, having composed a quarrel between the French and
Portuguese fishermen, he sailed on his voyage through the Gulf. This
he must have done during the preceding autumn. Yet, whenever he may
have ascended the St. Lawrence, Roberval reached the Isle of Orleans
in safety, and found a good harbor. Hakluyt says that at the end of
July he landed his stores, and began to fortify above Quebec at France
Royal;[180] if it was in July, it must have been July, 1542. Roberval,
possibly, reached his winter-quarters in 1541, when it was too late to
fortify. Hakluyt, having been misinformed on the expedition, supposed
that Cartier and Roberval were not together in Canada; but there is
much uncertainty in any conclusion.
A strong, elevated, and beautiful situation was selected by Roberval,
with “two courtes of buildings, a great toure, and another of fourtie
or fiftie foote long; wherein there were diuers chambers, an hall, a
kitchine, houses of office, sellers high and lowe, and neere vnto were
an oven and milles, and a stoue to warme men in, and a well before the
house.”
Hakluyt says that, September 14, Roberval sent back to France two
ships under Sainterre and Guincourt, bearing tidings to the King, and
requesting information respecting the value of Cartier’s “diamonds.” It
would appear, however, that these vessels were sent late in 1541, for
the reason that Jan. 26, 1542, Francis I. ordered Sainterre to go to
the rescue of Roberval,—the language of the order indicating that he
had already been out to Canada. On preparing for the winter, Roberval,
according to Hakluyt, found his provisions scanty. Still, having fish
and porpoises, he passed the season, though the bad food bred disease,
and not less than fifty of the company died. The people were vicious
and insubordinate; but the “Little King” was equal to the occasion,
dealing out even and concise justice, laying John of Nantes in irons,
whipping both men and women soundly, and hanging Michael Gaillon,—“by
which means they lived in quiet.”
The account of Hakluyt ends abruptly; yet he states that June 5, 1543,
Roberval went on an expedition to explore above Quebec, appointing
July 1 as the time of his return. If he did not appear then, the
thirty persons left behind were authorized to sail for France, while
he would remain in the country. What followed is invested with more
or less uncertainty, as we have no authority except Hakluyt, who says
that in an expedition up the river eight men were drowned, and one
“boate” lost; while, June 19, word came from Roberval to stay the
departure from France Roy until July 22. To this statement Hakluyt
adds, “the rest of the voyage is wanting.” His account of both Roberval
and Cartier’s operations are hardly to be relied upon, since he was
so badly informed. The circumstances under which Roberval returned to
France may perhaps never be known; yet it is certain that Cartier went
out to bring him home some time in the year 1543. He did not leave on
this voyage until after March 25, as he was present at a baptism in St.
Malo on that day, while he had returned before February 17, 1544, on
which date, as Longrais has discovered recently among the documents,
he was a witness in court at St. Malo. The subject will be referred to
again.
* * * * *
At this point it will be proper to give some account of the personal
operations of Jehan, or Jean, Allefonsce, the pilot of Roberval. He
was born at Saintonge, a village of Cognac, and was mortally wounded
in a naval combat which took place near the Harbor of Rochelle, having
followed the sea during a period of forty-one years. He appears to have
been engaged in two special explorations,—one carrying him to the
north, and the other to the vicinity of Massachusetts Bay.
Of the first expedition—that connected with the Saguenay or
vicinity—we have no account in the narrative which covers the voyage
of Roberval. Father Le Clercq, however, says: “The Sire Roberval
writes that he undertook some considerable voyages to the Saguenay and
several other rivers. It was he who sent Allefonsce, a very expert
pilot of Saintonge, to Labrador to find a passage to the Indies, as
was hoped. But not being able to carry out his designs, on account of
the heights of ice that stopped his passage, he was obliged to return
to M. de Roberval with only this advantage, of having discovered the
passage which is between the Isle of Newfoundland and the Great Land
of the north by the fifty-second degree.”[181] Le Clercq gives no
authority for his statement, and one writer[182] discredits it, for
the reason that Allefonsce is made to “discover” the passage between
Newfoundland and Labrador. It is probable, however, that Le Clercq, or
his authority, meant no more by the term “discover” than to explore,
as the Strait of Belle Isle was at that period as well known as Cape
Breton. Allefonsce’s narrative and maps do not show that he explored
the Saguenay.
It can hardly be questioned that a voyage was made by Allefonsce along
the Atlantic coast. The precise date, however, cannot be fixed. His
_Cosmographie_ proves that he had a personal knowledge of the country.
The voyage might have been made on some one of the ships which returned
to France while Roberval was in the country. Failing to discover any
passage to the Indies, Allefonsce may have run down the Atlantic
coast, hoping to find some hitherto neglected opening. At all events,
when he visited the coast he found a great bay in latitude forty-two,
apparently Massachusetts Bay. The original notice is found in his
_Cosmographie_, now preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. It
runs: “These lands reach to Tartary; and I think that it is the end
of Asia,[183] according to the roundness of the world. And for this
purpose it would be well to have a small vessel of seventy tons, in
order to discover the coast of Florida; for I have been at a bay as far
as forty-two degrees, between Norumbega and Florida, but I have not
seen the end, and do not know whether it extends any farther.”[184] The
belief in a western passage was after all very hard to give up, and
Champlain, in the next century, was consumed by the idea.
* * * * *
In closing this part of the subject, we have to inquire concerning the
outcome of the costly and laborious efforts of Cartier and Roberval
under Francis I. Some popular writers would lead us to suppose that
subsequent to the return of the expedition of 1543 the region of
the Gulf and River of St. Lawrence were deserted.[185] Gosselin,
in his _Documents relating to the Marine of Normandy_, shows that
the explorations of Cartier were attended and followed by active
operations conducted by private individuals. During the first years
of the sixteenth century, inspired by the example of Bethencourt, in
connection with the Canaries, the seaport towns of France showed great
enterprise. After the return of Verrazano, however, much discouragement
was felt, nor did the voyages of 1534-1536 stimulate so large a degree
of activity as might have been expected; but in 1540 all the maritime
towns were alive to the importance of the New Lands.[186] In that year,
as we have already seen, such was the scarcity of sailors, owing to the
prosecution of remunerative fisheries, that the authorities of St. Malo
were obliged to order that no vessel should leave port until Cartier
had secured a crew. In 1541 the prospect of the settlement of Canada
under the French gave such a stimulus to merchants, that in the months
of January and February, 1541, 1542, no less than sixty ships went “to
fish for cod in the New Lands.”[187] Gosselin, who had examined a great
number of the ancient records, says: “In 1543, 1544, and 1545, this
ardor was sustained; and during the months of January and February,
from Havre and Rouen, and from Dieppe and Honfleur, about two ships
left every day.”[188]
In 1545 no ship of the King went to Canada, and a sense of insecurity
prevailed, as the Spaniards and Portuguese at Newfoundland were ever
ready to make trouble; but in 1560 no less than thirty ships left the
little ports of Jumièges, Vatteville, and La Bouille, “to make the
voyage to the New Lands;”[189] while at this period the tonnage of
the vessels engaged rose from seventy to one hundred and fifty tons.
In 1564 the French Government was engaged in New France, and April 18
of that year the King’s Receiver-General, Guillaume Le Beau, bought
of Robert Gouel, as attested by the notaries of Rouen, a variety of
material, “to be carried into New France, whither the King would
presently send on his service.”[190]
On the seventh of the same month Le Beau paid four hundred livres
for arms and accoutrements necessary for the “French infantry,”
which “it pleased the King to send presently into his New France for
its defence.”[191] This shows that the idea of colonization was not
abandoned, and that the King asserted his rights there. He was no doubt
accustomed to send cruisers to Canada to protect French interests,
as the English at an early period sent ships of war to the coast of
Iceland to protect fishermen and traders.[192]
In 1583 Stephen Bellinger, a friend of Hakluyt, being in the service
of Cardinal Bourbon, of Rouen, visited Cape Breton and the coasts to
the south.[193] In 1577 and 1578 commissions were issued by Henry
III. to the Marquis de la Roche for a colony;[194] and Hakluyt says
that in 1584 the Marquis was cast away in an attempt to carry out
his scheme.[195] In 1587 the grandnephew of Cartier was in Canada,
evidently engaged in regular trade.[196] Beyond question communication
was maintained with Canada until official colonization was again taken
up in 1597.[197] The efforts of Francis I. in sending out Verrazano,
Cartier, and Roberval were by no means thrown away, and we must take
for what it is worth the statement of Alexander in his _Encouragement
to Colonies_, where (p. 36) he says that the French in America effected
more “by making a needless ostentation, that the World should know they
had beene there, then that they did continue still to inhabit there.”
CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.
LITTLE is known of the personal history of Jacques Cartier, though
Cunat discovered several points relating to his ancestry. It appears
that one Jehan Cartier married Guillemette Baudoin; and that of their
six children, Jamet, or Jacques, was the oldest, having been born Dec.
4, 1458. Marrying in turn Jeffeline Jansart, he had by her a son,
Dec. 31, 1494. This son, up to a recent day, was held to be the great
navigator; but Longrais has rendered it almost certain that he was not.
Like Verrazano, Allefonsce, and others, he appears to have done
something as a privateer; and the Spanish ambassador in France,
reporting the expedition of Cartier and Roberval, Dec. 17, 1541, spoke
of “el corsario Jacques Cartier.”[198]
At an early age Cartier was wedded to Catharine des Granches, daughter
of Jacques des Granches, the constable of St. Malo, this being
considered a brilliant marriage. After retiring from the sea, he lived
in the winter at his house in St. Malo, adjoining the Hospital of St.
Thomas, and in the summer at his manor on the outskirts of the town at
Limoilou.[199] The name of Des Granches appears in connection with the
mountains on the shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Cartier, so far
as known, had no children. At least Cunat’s researches, supported by
the local tradition, show that Manat had no authority now recognized
for saying that in 1665 he had a lineal descendant in one Harvée
Cartier.[200]
Following Verrazano, we have the earliest notice of French visitations
to the coast in the statement of Herrera,[201] that in 1526 the
Breton, Nicolas Don, pursued the fisheries at Baccalaos. In 1527 Rut,
as reported in Purchas,[202] says that eleven sail of Normans and
one of Bretons were at St. John, Newfoundland.[203] According to
Lescarbot,[204] who gives no authority, the Baron de Léry landed cattle
on the Isle of Sable in 1528.[205]
Next in the order of French voyages we reach those of Cartier. The
narrative of his first voyage appeared originally in the _Raccolta_,
etc., of Ramusio, printed at Venice in 1556.[206] It was translated
from the Italian into English by John Florio, and appeared under
the title, _A Short and Briefe Narration of the Two Navigations
and Discoveries to the Northweast Partes called Newe Fraunce_,
London, 1580.[207] This was adopted by Hakluyt, and printed in his
_Navigations_, 1600.[208] Another account of this voyage appeared in
French, printed at Rouen, 1598, having been written originally in
a _langue étrangere_. It has been supposed very generally that the
“strange language” was Italian, and that it was a translation from
Ramusio;[209] but this opinion is questioned.[210] Another narrative
of the voyage has been found and published as an original account by
Cartier.[211] In the Preface to the volume the Editor sets forth his
reasons for this opinion. It is noticeable that each of these three
versions is characterized by an obscurity to which attention has been
called.[212] Nearly all the facts of the first voyage, handled, like
the rest of his voyages, by so many writers, come from one of these
three versions.[213] The patent for the voyage, as in the case of the
voyage of Verrazano, is not known.
The narrative of the second voyage was published at Paris in 1545.[214]
Ramusio[215] accompanies the narrative of the first voyage with an
account of the second, also in Italian. Three manuscript versions of
the narrative are preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale, and are
described by Harrisse in his _Notes_.[216] Hakluyt[217] appears to
follow Ramusio.[218] The patents for the second voyage will be found in
Lescarbot (_Nouvelle France_), who used in his account of Cartier what
is known as the Roffet text, though he abridges and alters somewhat;
and he in turn was followed by Charlevoix.
For the third voyage of Cartier, unfortunately, we have only a few
facts in addition to the fragment preserved by Hakluyt,[219] which ends
with events at the close of September, 1541. An account of the voyage
of Roberval is added thereto.[220] The commission of Cartier is found
in Lescarbot’s _Nouvelle France_.[221] All that was formerly known
was taken from Hakluyt; but facts that somewhat recently have come to
light, though few, are nevertheless important, proving that Hakluyt’s
information respecting Roberval was poor, like that which he gives of
the voyage of Rut (1527). Rut’s voyage was tolerably well understood
by Purchas, who wrote after Hakluyt. Bancroft, in his _History of
the United States_,[222] writes on the subject of Cartier as he wrote
forty-nine years earlier;[223] while nearly all historical writers,
whether famous or obscure, have written in a similar way. They have
been misled by Hakluyt. The statement that Cartier, on his way home
in June, 1542, encountered Roberval at Newfoundland, and deserted him
in the night, is not in keeping with his character, and is rendered
improbable by the fact that in the previous autumn Roberval sailed for
Canada. All things, so far as known, indicate that a good understanding
existed between the two commanders, and that circumstances alone
prevented the accomplishment of larger results. Certainly, if Cartier
had failed in his duty, history would have given some record of the
fact. Francis I. would not have employed any halting, half-hearted man
who was trying to discourage exploration. Let us here, then, endeavor
to epitomize the operations of Roberval and Cartier:—
Jan. 15, 1540, Roberval was appointed lieutenant-general and
commander.[224] February 6 he took the oath,[225] followed the next
day by letters-patent confirming those of January 15.[226] February
27 Roberval appointed Paul d’Angilhou, known as Sainterre, his
lieutenant.[227] March 9 the Parliament of Rouen authorized Roberval
to take certain classes of criminals for the voyage.[228] October
17 Francis I. appointed Jacques Cartier captain-general and chief
pilot.[229] October 28 Prince Henry, the Dauphin, ordered certain
prisoners to be sent to Cartier for the voyage.[230] November 3
additional criminals, to the number of fifty, were ordered for the
expedition.[231] December 12 the King complained that the expedition
was delayed.[232] May 23, 1541, Cartier sailed with five ships.[233]
July 10 Chancellor Paget informs the Parliament of Rouen that “the King
considers it very strange that Roberval has not departed.”[234] August
18 Roberval writes from Honfleur that he will leave in four days.[235]
Aug. 22, 1541, Roberval sailed from Honfleur.[236] In the autumn
of 1541, Roberval, on his way to Canada, meets at St. John’s,[237]
Newfoundland, Jallobert and Noel, sailing by order of Cartier to
France. Immediately on his arrival at Quebec, autumn of 1541, Roberval
sends Sainterre to France.[238] Jan. 26, 1542, Francis I. orders
Sainterre, who has already “made the voyage,” to sail with two ships
“to succour, support, and aid the said Lord Roberval with provisions
and other things of which he has very great need and necessity.”[239]
During the summer of 1542 Roberval explores and builds France Roy.[240]
Sept. 9, 1542, Roberval pardons Sainterre at France Roy, in the
presence of Jean Allefonsce, for mutiny.[241] Oct. 21, 1542, Cartier
is in St. Malo and present at a baptism, having spent seventeen
months on the voyage.[242] Roberval spends the winter of 1542-1543
at France Roy.[243] March 25, 1543, Cartier present at a baptism in
St. Malo.[244] In the summer of 1543 Cartier sails on a voyage which
occupies eight months,[245] and brings Roberval home, leaving Canada
late in the season, and running unusual risk of his freight (_péril de
nauleaige_).[246] April 3, 1544, Cartier and Roberval are summoned to
appear before the King.[247]
This, so far as our present knowledge goes, formed the end of Cartier’s
seafaring. Thereafter, without having derived any material financial
benefit from his great undertakings, Cartier, as the Seigneur of
Limoilou, dwelt at his plain manor-house on the outskirts of St. Malo,
where he died, greatly honored and respected, about the year 1555.[248]
* * * * *
Charlevoix affirms that Roberval made another attempt to colonize
Canada in 1549;[249] Thevet says that he was murdered in Paris: at all
events he soon passed from sight.[250]
There is no evidence to prove that Cartier gave any name to the country
which he explored. The statement found at the end of Hakluyt’s version
of the second voyage,[251] to the effect that the Newfoundlands “were
by him named New France,” originated with the translator. It is not
given in connection with the text of Ramusio, nor in the French edition
of 1545, though that _Relation_ (p. 46) employs the language, “Appellée
par nous la nouvelle France.” In the same folio we find the writer
stating of Cape St. Paul, “Nous nommasmes le cap de Sainct Paul,”
though the name had been given at an early period, appearing upon the
Maijolla map of 1527.
“Canada” was the name which Cartier found attached to the land,[252]
and there is no evidence that he attempted to displace it. It is
indeed said, in Murphy’s _Voyage of Verrazzano_,[253] that the name
“Francisca” was due to Cartier. He says, “This name Francisca, or
the _French Land_,”—found on a map in the Ptolemy printed at Basle
in 1540,—was “due to the French under Jacques Cartier, and which
could properly belong to no other exploration of the French.” This
statement was made in rebuttal of that by Brevoort in his _Verrazano
the Navigator_ (p. 141), where he says that “the first published map
containing traces of Verrazano’s exploration is in the Ptolemy of
Basle, 1530, which appeared four years before the French renewed their
attempts at American exploration. It shows the western sea without a
name, and the land north of it called Francisca.” As it appears, there
is no edition of Ptolemy bearing date of 1530; yet the student is
sufficiently correct in referring the name “Francisca” to the voyage of
Verrazano, especially as the Maijollo map, 1527, applies “Francesca”
to North America, this map having been made only three years after the
voyage of Verrazano, performed in 1524. Evidently, however, Verrazano
was not more anxious than Cartier about any name, since on the map of
his brother Hieronymus da Verrazano (1529), this region is called “Nova
Gallia, sive Yucatania.”
Nor did Roberval attempt to name the country, while the commission
given him by the King does not associate the name of Francis or any
new name therewith. The misunderstanding on this point is now cleared
up.[254]
Cartier did not give any name to the Gulf, simply applying the name
of St. Lawrence to what may have been the St. John’s River, on the
Labrador coast, where he chanced to be on the festival of that saint in
1535. Gomara thus writes in 1555: “A great river, named San Lorenço,
which some consider an arm of the sea. It has been navigated two
hundred leagues up, on which account many call it the Straits of the
Three Brothers (_los tres hermanos_). Here the water forms a square
gulf, which extends from San Lorenço to the point of Baccallaos, more
than two hundred leagues.”[255]
* * * * *
Little is known at present of the personal history of Jean Allefonsce.
D’Avezac, in the _Bulletin de géographie_,[256] attempted to give
an account of the man and his work; and Margry, in his _Navigations
Françaises_, added substantial information. At one time he was claimed
by the Portuguese as of their nation, because he voyaged to Brazil; but
his French origin is now abundantly proved out of the book published by
Jean de Marnef in 1559, entitled _Les voyages avantureux du Capitaine
du Alfonce Saintongeois_. It is a small volume in quarto, numbering
sixty-eight leaves, the verso of the last one bearing the epilogue:
“End of the present book, composed and ordered [?] by Jan Alphonce,
an experienced pilot in things narrated in this book, a native of the
country of Xaintonge, near the city of Cognac. Done at the request of
Vincent Aymard, merchant of the country of Piedmont, Maugis Vumenot,
merchant of Honfleur, writing for him.”
Allefonsce appears to have been of a brave, adventurous, and somewhat
haughty spirit. We are even told that he was once imprisoned at
Poitiers by royal orders.[257] He was considered a man of ability, and
was trusted on account of his great skill. In Hakluyt[258] it is said,
“There is a pardon to be seene for the pardoning of _Monsieur de saine
terre_, Lieutenant of the sayd _Monsieur de Roberval_, giuen in Canada
in presence of the sayde _Iohn Alphonse_.”
The sailor of Saintonge met his death in a naval engagement, though
most writers appear to have overlooked the fact. It is indicated in a
sonnet written by his eulogist, Melin Saint-Gelais, and prefixed to
the first edition of the _Voyages avantureux_, 1559. The allusion was
pointed out by Harrisse in his _Notes sur la Nouvelle France_, Paris,
1872 (p. 8), indicating that this event must have taken place before
March 7, 1557,—the date of the imprimatur of the edition of 1559.[259]
Mr. Brevoort, in his _Verrazano the Navigator_, quoting Barcia’s
Ensayo, etc., Madrid, 1723, fol. 58, shows that he fought Menendez, the
Spaniard, near the reef of Rochelle, and was mortally wounded.[260]
There is no true connection between the manuscript of Allefonsce,
now preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, catalogued under
Secalart, and the volume of _Voyages avantureux_ which bears his
name. This latter work we owe, in some not understood sense, to the
enterprise of a publisher who brought it out after the old mariner’s
death. The erroneous character of certain of its statements excited
the criticism of Lescarbot;[261] yet several descriptions of our coast
are recognizable, and very interesting. In this printed book the
matter relating to the North Atlantic coast occupies only about three
pages,—the chief points for which were taken, it appears, from the
manuscript of Allefonsce, though several particulars not found in his
manuscript are given.
The manuscript itself must be judged leniently, as Secalart was
concerned in the composition, and appears to have written some portions
from the notes of Allefonsce.[262] The part of the _Cosmographie_
applying to the North Atlantic coast begins with a description of the
Island of St. John and Cape Breton. Three points south of Cape Breton,
if not a fourth, are defined in connection with that cape. We read:
“Turning to the Isle of St. John, called Cape Breton, the outermost
part of which is in the ocean in 45° from the Arctic pole, I say Cape
of St. John, called Cape Breton, and the Cape of the Franciscans, are
northeast and southwest, and there is in the course one hundred and
forty leagues; and here it makes a cape called the Cape of Norumbega.
The said cape is by 41° from the height of the Arctic pole.” For the
writer to call Cape Breton by another name is consistent with old
usage.[263] Where, however, it is said, “here it makes a cape,” the
language is obscure, as the writer seems to mean that on this coast
there is a cape between the Franciscan Cape and Cape Breton, since on
the map the Franciscan Cape is placed south of the Bay of the Isles,
which the description places south of the Cape of Norumbega. The latter
cape is not laid down on the map; but we have there the River of
Norumbega, north of which is “Une partie de la Coste de la Norombegue,”
while south of the river is “Terra de la Franciscaine.” The Cape of
Norumbega should therefore have been marked on the map at the southern
extremity of the Norumbega coast, near the Bay of the Isles. “Cap de la
Franciscaine” would then stand for Cape Cod. If this interpretation is
correct, the clause, “the said cape is by 41° from the height of the
Arctic pole,” would denote the Franciscan cape.[264]
The next descriptive paragraph gives a clear idea of the region south
of Cape Norumbega: “Beyond the Cape of Noroveregue descends the river
of said Noroveregue, about twenty-five leagues from the cape. The
said river is more than forty leagues wide at its entrance, and
continues inwardly thus wide full thirty or forty leagues, and is
all full of islands that extend quite ten or twelve leagues into the
sea, and is very dangerous on account of rocks and shoals.”[265] Here
we have a clear representation of the Penobscot region, the writer
taking the bay for the entrance to the river, as others did in later
times. He also says that “fifteen leagues within this river is a
city called Norombergue.” According to the old notion, he thought
the Norumbega River extended to Canada, as in the map of Ramusio,
which is substantially true. Taking up his account of the coast, the
writer says: “From the River of Norombergue the coast runs to the
west-southwest quite two hundred leagues, to a large bay which enters
the land about twenty leagues, and is full twenty-nine leagues wide;
and within this gulf there are four islands joined the one to the
other. The entrance to the Gulf is 38° from the height of the Arctic
pole, and the said isles are in 39 and a half degrees. And I have not
seen the end of this Gulf, and I do not know whether it passes beyond.”
Here he does not appear to be making an allusion to the great bay in
42° N. (_ante_, p. 60), but he has now reached the vicinity of the
Franciscan Cape, or Cape Cod, and speaks of the mouth of Long Island
Sound and contiguous openings, in connection with the great islands
that stretch along the coast southwest of Cape Cod. He does not here
mention the Franciscan Cape, before alluded to, distant from the “Cape
of St. John, called the Cape of the Franciscans,” one hundred and
forty leagues, but he indicates its situation by the islands and the
Sound lying to the southward; while in its place it will be observed
that the printed _Cosmographie_ also identifies the region by means
of the islands, and shows that the Franciscan Cape at one point was
high land,—evidently what is now known as the Highland of Cape Cod,
which, as the geological formation indicates, was even higher in the
time of Allefonsce. He continues: “From this gulf the coast turns
west-northwest about forty-six leagues, and makes here a great river of
Fresh water, and there is at its entrance an island of sand. The said
island is 39° from the height of the Arctic pole.” He is now speaking
of the region of the Hudson and Sandy Hook, though the latitudes are
incorrect, as was usual with writers of that time; while the courses
and distances are equally confused. Nevertheless we have a general and
recognizable description of the main features of the coast between
Cape Breton and Sandy Hook, though in the printed _Cosmographie_,
which is very brief, the island of sand is not mentioned. Therefore,
feeling certain of the correctness of our position, minor errors and
omissions may be left to take care of themselves. The principal points,
Cape Breton, Cape Sable, Cape Cod, and the Hudson, are unmistakably
indicated in the _routier_, though in the maps of Allefonsce, as in
most of the maps of the day, essential features are not delineated
with any approach to accuracy, the great peninsula of Nova Scotia,
terminating in Cape Sable, for instance, having no recognizable
definition. Yet he dwells upon the fierceness of the tides, and says
that when the strong northeast winds blow, the seas “roar horribly.”
This is precisely the case on the shoals of Georges and Nantucket,
where the meeting of waves and tides, even in a dead calm, produces an
uproar that is sometimes deafening.
At this point we may obtain a confirmation of the manuscript
description from the printed work. The account says: “Having passed the
Isle of Saint Jehan, the coast turns to the west and west-southwest as
far as the River Norombergue, newly discovered[266] by the Portuguese,
which is in the thirtieth degree.” After describing the river and its
inhabitants, he says: “Thence the coast turns south-southwest more than
two hundred leagues, as far as a cape which is high land (_un cap qui
est haute terre_), and has a great island of low land and three or four
little islands;”[267] after which he drops the subject and hastens
down the coast to the West Indies. Here, however, we have the same cape
that we find in the manuscript, which is there called the Franciscan
Cape, or our present Cape Cod, beyond which are the islands Nantucket,
Martha’s Vineyard, and the Elizabeth group, joined one to the other
almost like beads on a string, as we see them on the modern map.
Here, however, it should be pointed out that, apparently in the
lifetime of Francis I., the portion of _Voyages avantureux_ which
describes the North American coast was turned into metrical form by
Jehan Maillard, “poet royal;” and thus, long before Morrell wrote
his poetical description of New England, our coast from Newfoundland
to Sandy Hook was described in French verse, Maillard being the
first writer to pay a tribute of the kind.[268] This person was a
contemporary of Allefonsce and Cartier, and possibly he was connected
with Roberval, as Parmenius, the learned Hungarian of Buda, was
connected with Sir Humphrey Gilbert in his expedition of 1585, who
went for the express purpose of singing the praise of Norumbega in
Latin verse.[269] In his dedication he refers to Cartier. These verses,
like the printed book, contain the points which are not made in the
manuscript of Allefonsce.[270]
Again, in our manuscript we find the writer going down the coast from
Sandy Hook to Florida, describing, in a somewhat confused way, Cape
Henlopen and Delaware Bay, with its white cliff (_fallaise blanche_),
so conspicuous at the entrance to-day. Thus both the printed book and
the manuscript make three divisions of the coast between Cape Breton
and Florida, and show a general knowledge of essential features.
Hakluyt[271] gives a section from the original work of Allefonsce, to
which he appears to have had access. The heading runs: “Here followeth
the course from Belle Isle, Carpont, and the Grand Bay in Newfoundland,
vp the riuer of Canada for the space of 230 leagues, obserued by Iohn
Alphonse of Xanctoigne, chiefe Pilot to Monsieur Roberual, 1542.”
This piece was translated from the French, and in one place Hakluyt
makes Allefonsce say: “By the nature of the climate the lands toward
Hockelaga are still better and better, and more fruitful; and this land
is fit for figges and peares. I think that gold and silver will be
found here.” This, however, is a mistranslation, or at least it does
not agree with the manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale, which may
be rendered, “These lands, extending to Hochelaga, are much better
and warmer than those of Canada, and this land of Hochelaga extends
to Figuier and Peru, in which silver and gold abound.”[272] Under the
direction of the Quebec Literary and Historical Society, the English
version found in Hakluyt was turned back into French, as the existence
of the Paris manuscript was not known to the editors; and in the
_Voyages des déscouvertes au Canada_ (p. 86) we read: “Et cette terre
peut produire des Figuee et des Poires.” In this, however, they were
encouraged by the statement found in all three versions of the first
voyage of Cartier, which say that at Gaspé the land produced figs.
Allefonsce confines his description chiefly to the route pursued by
him in his voyage with Roberval, though he speaks of the neighborhood
of Gaspé and Chaleur; while he calls the Island of Assumption
“L’Ascentyon.” He also says of the Saguenay, “Two or three leagues
within the entrance it begins to grow wider and wider, and it seems to
be an arm of the sea; and I think that the same runs into the Sea of
Cathay.”[273]
We turn finally to the cartology of the voyages under consideration,
which, however, it is not proposed to treat here at much length, the
subject being well-nigh inexhaustible.[274]
In the order of the Court of St. Malo, already referred to,[275] made
on the remonstrance of Cartier, we find that in March, 1533, he was
charged with the responsibility of a voyage to the New Lands, the
route selected being that of “the strait of the Bay of the Castle,”
now the Strait of Belle Isle. The existence of the Bay of St. Lawrence
was evidently known to Cartier. He must have learned something of the
region through the contemporary fishing voyages of the French. He
could have inferred nothing, however, from the map of Ruysch, 1508,
which made Newfoundland a part of Asia; though the Reinel map, 1505,
and the Portuguese map (1520), given by Kunstmann, show the Straits
of Belle Isle and the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, between
Cape Breton and Newfoundland. The anonymous map of 1527, published
by Dr. Kohl, with the Ribero map (1529), show both straits; though
when Ribero copied that map and made some additions, he substantially
closed them up.[276] On the Verrazano map of 1529 the straits were
indicated as open. The Maijolla map of 1527, though a Verrazano map,
gives a deep indenture, but no indication of an opening beyond. It was,
nevertheless, clear enough to Cartier at this time that the straits
entering north and south of Newfoundland led either to another strait
or to a large bay. Maps of the Gulf must have existed in Dieppe at the
period of his voyage, though, owing to the desire of the various cities
to gain a monopoly of the New World trade, he may not have obtained
much information from that Norman port. Cartier seems to have made maps
representing his explorations. There is a brief description of one map
contained in the letter of Jacques Noel, his grandnephew, written from
St. Malo in 1587 to Mr. John Grote, at Paris. In this map Canada was
well delineated, but it has now disappeared.[277]
What may have been known popularly of Newfoundland at the time of
Cartier’s first voyage is shown by the Maijolla map (1527), the map of
Verrazano (1529), and the map of Gaspar Viegas (1534).[278] The latter
shows a part of Newfoundland, and the Cape Breton entrance to the Gulf
of St. Lawrence is simply the mouth of a _cul-de-sac_, into which empty
two streams,—“R. dos Poblas” and “Rio pria,”—indicating that the
Portuguese may have entered the Gulf. On the New Brunswick coast is
“S. Paulo,”—a name that Cartier is erroneously represented as giving
in 1535, at which time Cartier found the name in use, probably seeing
it on some chart. The Island of Cape Breton is laid down distinctly,
but we can hardly make “Rio pria” do duty for the St. Lawrence. The
Maijolla map (1527) shows “C. Paulo.” A map now preserved in the
Bodleian, given by Kohl,[279] and bearing date of “1536, die Martii,”
shows a dotted line running from Europe to Cathay, and passing through
an open strait north of Newfoundland. The map of Agnese (1536) makes no
mention of Cartier.[280]
Oviedo,[281] in his description of the coast in 1537, shows no
knowledge of the Gulf. He mentions an Island of St. John, but this lay
out in the Atlantic near Cape Breton, close to the Straits of Canso.
Nevertheless he gives a description of the four coasts of Cape Breton
Island. Afterward describing Newfoundland out of Ribero, he puts an
Island of St. John on the east coast near Belle Isle,[282] while in
a corresponding position we see on Ribero’s map, as published by
Kohl, the Island of “S. Juan.”[283] Mercator’s rare map of 1538[284]
exhibits Newfoundland as circumnavigated, the southern part being
composed of broken islands, named “Insule Corterealis.” Canada is
“Baccalearum regio,” and North America is “Americæ,” or “Hispania
major, capta anno 1530.” A strait, “Fretum arcticum,” runs north of
Labrador to the Pacific.
The Ptolemy published at Basle in 1540 shows a knowledge of Cartier’s
second voyage, Canada being called “Francisca;” while in the gulf
behind Newfoundland, called “Cortereali,” is a broad river like the St.
Lawrence, extending into the continent.
Nevertheless, at this period many of the maps and globes bore no
recognition of Cartier. A Spanish globe, for instance, of about 1540
shows no trace of Cartier, though behind Newfoundland—reduced to a
collection of small islands—is a great gulf indented with deep bays,
one being marked “Rio de Penico,” which may stand for the St. Lawrence,
and thus represent the alleged Portuguese exploration of the Gulf by
Alvarez Fagundes anterior to Cartier.[285]
[Illustration: ALLEFONSCE, FOL. 62^A.]
The map of Mercator published at Louvain in 1541 indicates no new
discovery of the French. Newfoundland appears as in the sketch of
1538, but in the Gulf, represented by a broad strait, we find, “C. das
paras,” “R. compredo,” and “R. da Baia.” The island of Cape Breton
bears the legend, “C. de teenedus bretoys.”
Next in order, perhaps, come the sketches of Jean Allefonsce, pilot of
Roberval, who sailed with him for Canada, Aug. 22, 1541. Of his maps we
have four examples relating to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the North.
Like the rest of his sketches, they are intercalated in his manuscript.
These particular sketches are found on folios 62, 179, 181, 183. Folio
62 represents Labrador and the regions to the north, with Iceland;
folio 179 shows “La Terra Neufe,” the southern part being an island,
and Labrador cut in two by a broad channel marked “La Bay d’au vennent
les glaces,” which Allefonsce thought came out of a fresh-water sea.
Folio 181 has the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with Assumption Island marked
“L’Ascention.” He invariably makes this mistake.
[Illustration: ALLEFONSCE, FOL. 179.]
The Gulf is called the Sea of Canada (_Mer de Canada_). There are three
inlets without names, representing Miramichi, Chaleur, and Gaspé. The
Gaspé region is called “Terre Unguedor.” The mouth of the St. Lawrence
is shown; and near the entrance, on the Labrador side, we find “La
Terre de Sept Isles.” There is an opening intended for Cartier’s Bay
of St. Lawrence; and farther eastward is “Cap de Thienot,” so named by
Cartier on his first voyage, after the Indian chief found there. Folio
183 indicates the Gulf again, as part of the Sea of Canada (_Partie
de la Mer de Canada_), together with a portion of the St. Lawrence,
marked “Riviere du Canada.” Where the sketch of folio 181 properly
shows “Unguedor,” we find “La Terre Franciscaine.” The Saguenay is
represented as a broad strait leading into a great sea, “La Mer du
Saguenay,” in which are three islands. These sketches, though rude,
possess considerable interest, as being the first known delineations of
the region made on the spot by an actual navigator; but the Saguenay
region is sketched fancifully from hearsay.
[Illustration: ALLEFONSCE, FOL. 181^A.]
In this connection we may mention Allefonsce’s sketches of the Atlantic
coast on folios 184, 186, 187 of his _Cosmographie_. The first includes
the entrance to the Gulf and the southern part of Newfoundland. The
entrance is marked “Entree des Bretons.” The Island of Cape Breton
bears its proper name, with the Straits of Canso clearly defined. Near
its true locality in the Gulf, but on too small a scale, we discover
the “Isla de Saint-Jean,” the “Isle Gazeas” of the map of Du Testu. The
New Brunswick section is styled, “One part of the Land of the Laborer”
(_Une partje de la Coaste du Laboureur_).[286] Cape Race, Newfoundland,
is called “Cap de Rat.” Folio 186 shows the New England coast proper,
with the River of Norumbega, south of which is “Cap de la Franciscaine”
and “Terre de la Franciscaine.” The next section (187) includes the
coast to Florida, with the West Indies and part of South America.
It would prove interesting if one could establish the priority of
Allefonsce in his application of the name “Saint-Jean” to our present
Prince Edward Island.[287] The _Cosmographie_ was finished in 1545,
while the so-called Cabot map, which uses the same name, was published
in 1544. Now did Allefonsce adopt the name from this map of 1544?
Clearly the name was not given by Cartier, either on his first or
second voyage. On his third voyage he does not appear to have sailed on
that side of the Gulf, while we have no details of the fourth voyage.
He, however, gave the name of St. John to a cape on the west coast of
Newfoundland during his first voyage. Allefonsce called Prince Edward
Island by that name. A full discussion of this subject might involve
a fresh inquiry into the authenticity of the Cabot map, and expunge
“Prima Vista.”
[Illustration: ALLEFONSCE, FOL. 183^A.]
The globe of Ulpius, 1542, does not recognize the voyages of Cartier,
showing Canada as the “Baccalearum Regio,” with openings in the coast
north and south of Newfoundland, called “Terra Laboratores.” North
America appears as a part of Asia.[288] The Nancy globe, which also
shows North America as connected with Asia, indicates that the insular
character of Newfoundland, called “Corterealis,” was well known at
the time of its construction, about 1542. From the gulf behind the
island—the southern part of which is much broken—two rivers extend
some distance into the continent.[289] These globes are according to
the prevailing French idea of the period, making New France, as Francis
I. expressed it, a part of Asia. The map of Jean Rotz, 1542, shows the
explorations of Cartier, but omits the names that belong on the Gulf
and River of St. Lawrence.[290]
The Vallard map 1544 (?) shows very fully the discoveries of Cartier,
his French names being corrupted by the Portuguese map-makers, who
promptly obtained a report of all that Cartier had done. The Gulf and
River of St. Lawrence appear simply as “Rio de Canada.”[291]
In 1544 we reach the famous Cabot map,[292] drawn from French material,
fully illustrating the French discoveries in Canada, and practically
ignoring the claims of Spain, though the alleged author was in the
service of that country. This appears to be the first publication,
and in fact the first recognition in a printed form, of the voyages
of Cartier and Roberval, the narrative of Cartier’s second voyage not
appearing until the following year.
[Illustration: ALLEFONSCE, CAPE BRETON, 1544-1545.]
Next, we find in the map of the Dauphin, or Henri II. (1546), that
Roberval is recognized standing with his soldiers in martial array
on the bank of the Saguenay. Newfoundland is represented as a mass
of islands,—an idea not dissipated by the voyages of Cartier; but
the Gulf and River of St. Lawrence are well depicted, and show the
explorations of the sailor of St. Malo. We see the Island of Assumption
(our Anticosti), the Island of St. John (Alezay), Brion’s Island, and
the Bird Rocks, with many of the names actually given to points of
the coast by Cartier, which shows that he did his work with care, yet
without attempting to affix names to either the gulf or the river,
giving to the latter in his narrative the Indian name “Hochelaga.” On
this map[293] the name of “St. Laurens” stands where Cartier put it
on his first voyage, at the St. John’s River, though the name very
soon—we cannot say when—was applied to the Gulf, as to-day. Gomara
styles it San Lorenço in 1553. The _Isolario_ of Bordone (1549) has
no recognition of Roberval or Cartier, repeating the map found in the
edition of 1527.
[Illustration: ALLEFONSCE, COAST OF MAINE, 1544-1545.]
In this connection the map of Gastaldi (1550) is somewhat remarkable.
Publishing it in 1556, in the third volume of his _Raccolta_ in
connection with the “Discorso d’vn Gran Capitano,” supposed to
have been written in 1539, Ramusio says that he is aware of its
deficiencies. This map, as well as the “Discorso,” makes no reference
to Cartier, though the country is called “LA NVOVA FRANCIA.” The map
gives a lively picture of the region. Norumbega appears as an island,
and Newfoundland as a collection of large islands, with evidences
of what may stand for explorations in the Gulf lying behind; but,
unlike the globe just mentioned, it shows no names on the coast of the
Gulf.[294] The insular character of the Norumbega region is not purely
imaginary, but is based upon the fact that the Penobscot region affords
almost a continued watercourse to the St. Lawrence, which was travelled
by the Maine Indians.
A map of Guillaume le Testu (1555),[295] preserved in the Department
of the Marine at Paris, exhibits very fully the work of Cartier. He
uses both the names “Francica” and “Le Canada.” To the Island of Prince
Edward, one cape of which Cartier called “Alezay,” he calls “Isle
Gazees.” The map marked xi. in Kunstmann’s _Atlas_ appears to apply “I:
allezai” to the same island.
Diego Homem’s map (1558), in the British Museum, also shows the
explorations of Cartier, though, in a poor and disjointed way,
representing the Northern Ocean as extending down to the region of
the St. Lawrence, and as being connected therewith by several broad
passages. Mercator (given by Jomard) reveals the discoveries of Cartier
in a more sober way, though he puts “Honguedo” at the Saguenay instead
of at Gaspé.
Here some notice should perhaps be taken of a map drawn in the year
1559,—the year 967 of the Hegira,—by the Tunisian, Hagi Ahmed, who
was addicted to the study of geography in his youth, and who, while
temporarily a slave among Christians, acquired much knowledge which
afterwards proved very serviceable. This map is cordiform, and engraved
on wood. It is described in the _Bulletin de la Société de Géographie_
(1865, pp. 686-757). A delineation in outline is also given, though
this representation affords only a faint idea of its contents. It was
found in the archives of the Council of Ten, and was discussed by
the Abbé Assemani in 1795. He was awarded a gold medal by the Prince
of Venice, who caused it to be struck in his honor. His treatise was
limited to twenty-four copies, which were accompanied by an equal
number of copies of the map. The name “Hagi” indicates that Ahmed had
made the holy pilgrimage to Mecca. The photograph[296] of it measures
16½ × 16 inches, the representation of the earth’s surface being
bordered by descriptive text inclosed in scroll work. Only two and one
half inches are devoted to the coast from Labrador to Florida; the
work, accordingly, being very minute, is difficult to examine even
under a lens. The coast is depicted according to Ribero; the Gulf of
St. Lawrence not being shown, though deep indentations mark the two
entrances. He does not appear to have had access to any good charts,
and shows a poor knowledge of what Cartier had done.
The map of Nicholas des Liens, of Dieppe (1566), which is a map of the
world, preserved under glass in the Geographical Department of the
Bibliothèque Nationale, gives on a small scale a curious representation
of Cartier’s exploration; the St. Lawrence as far as Quebec being
a broad gulf, one arm of which extends southwest, nearly to what
represents the New England coast. Along Lower Canada is spread out the
name “Jacques Cartier.”
Mercator’s map of 1569 makes some improvement upon the Dauphin’s map of
1546, showing Cape Breton more in its true relation to the continent;
while Newfoundland is comprised in fewer fragments. North America and
the lands to the north are dominated by imagination; and in this map we
find the source of much of that confusion which the power of Mercator’s
name extended far into the seventeenth century.[297] Mercator does not
give any additional facts respecting the explorations of Cartier.
The general map in the Ptolemy of 1574, by Ruscelli, shows North
America connected with both Asia and Europe, Greenland being joined
with the latter. Another map in this volume, showing the coast from
Florida to Labrador, presents Newfoundland in the old way as a
collection of islands, with three unnamed rivers extending into the
main at the westward.[298]
Ortelius, in 1575, fashioned his map of the world after Mercator, and
shows “Juan” out in the sea off Cape Breton; while in his special map
of America, farther out, we find “Juan de Sump^o” in the place of
Mercator’s “Juan Estevan.”[299]
The map of Thevet, given in his _Cosmographie Universelle_, 1575,
adds little to the interest of the discussion, as for the most part
he follows Mercator, the master of the period. On reaching the year
1584, the map of Jacques de Vaulx is found to show no improvement over
its immediate predecessors. The Gulf of St. Lawrence appears under its
present name, and the river, which is very wide, extends to Chilaga.
The Penobscot River runs through to the St. Lawrence, while a large
island, called “L’Isle St. Jehan,” lies in the sea along the coast
which occupies the region where we should look for a definition of the
peninsula of Nova Scotia.[300] On Lower Canada we read, “Terre Neufe.”
Newfoundland appears almost as a single island.
[Illustration: DES LIENS (1566).
[Sketched from a tracing furnished by Dr. De Costa.—ED.]]
Porcacchi’s work, _L’Isole piv Famose del Mondo_ of 1590 (p. 161),
goes backward in a hopeless manner. A river extends from the region of
Nova Scotia into a great lake (Lago) near “Ochelaga,” the latter being
nearly the only word on the map distinctly recalling the voyages of
Cartier.[301]
The map of De Bry, 1596, gives no light; though out at sea, off Cape
Breton, is the island “Fagundas.”[302] Wytfliet’s _Descriptionis
Ptolemaicæ_, etc., of 1597, contains the same representations of the
Gulf and River of St. Lawrence found in other editions, including the
Douay edition of 1611.[303] This author is also dominated by Mercator.
The Molyneux map of 1600, among other points, shows Allefonsce’s Sea of
Saguenay, saying, “The Lake of Tadenac [Tadousac?], the boundes whereof
are unknown.”[304] On this map Newfoundland appears as one solid
island, while the Penobscot extends through to the St. Lawrence, which
itself flows westward into the great “Lake of Tadenac, the boundes
whereof are unknoune.”[305]
Here we close our brief notice of a few of the representative maps
produced prior to the opening of the seventeenth century. A careful
examination of these maps would show, that, from the period of the
Dauphin Map down to the first voyage of Champlain to Canada, in 1603,
no substantial improvement was made by the cartographers of any nation
in the geographical delineation of the region opened to France by the
enterprise of Cartier and those who followed him. As we have shown
(_ante_, p. 61), the connection with New France was maintained, vast
profits being derived from the fisheries and from trade; but scientific
exploration appears to have been neglected, while the maps in many
cases became hopelessly confused. It was the work of Champlain to
bring order out of confusion; and by his well-directed explorations
to restore the knowledge which to the world at large had been lost,
carrying out at the same time upon a larger scale the arduous
enterprises projected by Jacques Cartier.
[Illustration]
THE CARTOGRAPHY
OF THE
NORTHEAST COAST OF NORTH AMERICA.
1535-1600.
BY THE EDITOR.
ALONZO DE CHAVES, who was made a royal cosmographer April 4, 1528, and
still retained that title, at the age of ninety-two, in 1584,[306]
is known to have made in 1536 a chart of the coast from Newfoundland
south; and though it is no longer extant, Harrisse[307] thinks its
essential parts are given in all probability in a chart of Diego
Gutierrez, preserved in the French archives.[308] It is known that
Oviedo based his description of the coast upon it; his full text
was not generally accessible till the Academy of History at Madrid
published its edition of the _Historia general de las Indias_[309] in
1852.
[Illustration: FROM THE NANCY GLOBE.
The key is as follows: 1. Gronlandia. 2. Corterealis. 3. Baccalearum
regio. 4. Anorombega.]
During the few years immediately following the explorations of Cartier
we find little or no trace of his discoveries. There is scarcely any
significance, for instance, in the Agnese map of 1536,[310] the Apianus
map of 1540,[311] the Münster of the same year,[312] or in other
maps mentioned in connection with the Sea of Verrazano on an earlier
page.[313] A little more precision comes with the group of islands
standing for the Newfoundland region, which appears in the early
Mercator map of 1538 and in the gores of Mercator’s globe of 1541,[314]
and in the Nancy globe of about the same date; but the Ulpius globe
(1542) is uncertain enough, and has the names confused.
We first begin to trace a sensible effect of Cartier’s voyage in
a manuscript in the British Museum[315] indorsed, _This Boke of
Idrography is made by me, Johne Rotz, Sarvant to the Kinges Mooste
Excellent Majestie_. The author was a Frenchman of Flemish name, and
his treatise is dated 1542. Harrisse[316] thinks that he used the
Portuguese-Dieppe authorities; and Kohl thinks that he must have had
access to the maps, now lost, which Cartier brought home from his first
voyage, while along the Gulf of Maine he depended upon the Spanish
accounts.[317] Both of the sketches from Rotz here given follow copies
in the Kohl Collection; one is a section from his map of the east coast
of North America, and the other is from his Western Hemisphere,—which
seems to indicate that he had in the interim between making the two
maps got tidings of Cartier’s later voyage.[318]
[Illustration: FROM THE ULPIUS GLOBE, 1542.
The key is as follows: 1. Groestlandia. 2. Islandia. 3. Grovelat.
4. Terra Corterealis. 5. Baccalos. 6. Terra laboratoris. 7. Cavo de
Brettoni. Cf. the fac-simile on an earlier page.]
Baptista Agnese at Venice seems not to have been as fortunate in
getting knowledge of Cartier’s voyages as Rotz in London was; and
two or three of his charts, dated 1543, showing this region, are
preserved. They give a pretty clear notion of the eastern coast of
Newfoundland, with “C. Raso” and “Terra de los Bretones” to the west of
it.[319] These Agnese maps are in London,[320] Paris, Florence,[321]
and Coburg.[322] Other maps by Agnese of a year or two later date, but
preserving much the same characteristics, are in the Royal Library at
Dresden,[323] dated 1544, and in the Marciana Collection at Venice,
dated 1545.[324]
We get at last, as has been said in the previous chapter, the first
recognition in a printed map of the Cartier voyages in the great
Cabot map of 1544, of which a section is here reproduced,[325] and a
similar section is given by Harrisse in his _Cabots_, preserving the
colors of the original. Harrisse, by collating the references and
early descriptions, reaches the conclusion that there may have been
three, and perhaps four, editions of this map, of which a single copy
of one edition is now known. Of the maps accompanying the manuscript
_Cosmographie_ of Allefonsce, in the Paris Library, sufficient has been
said in the preceding text.[326]
None of these explorations prevented Münster, however, from neglecting,
if he was aware of, the newer views which the Cabot map had made
public; and his eagerness for the western passage dictated easily
a way to the Moluccas in the “Typus universalis” of his edition of
Ptolemy in 1545.
[Illustration: ROTZ, 1542 (_East Coast_).]
In the same year (1545) a map of America appeared in the well-known
nautical handbook of the Spaniards, the _Arte de navegar_ of Pedro
de Medina, which was repeated in his _Libro de grandezas y cosas
memorables de España_ of 1549. A sketch of this part of the coast is
annexed, and it will be seen that it betrays no adequate conception of
what Cartier had accomplished.
[Illustration: ROTZ, 1542 (_Western Hemisphere_).]
To 1546 we may now assign the French map sometimes cited as that of
the Dauphin, and sometimes as of Henri II. It is but a few years since
Mr. Major first deciphered the legend: “Faictes a Arques par Pierre
Desceliers, presb^r, 1546.” Jomard, who gives a fac-simile of it,
places it about the middle of the century;[327] D’Avezac put it under
1542;[328] Kohl thought it was finished in 1543.[329]
[Illustration: FROM THE CABOT MAPPEMONDE, 1544.]
The annexed sketch will show that the Cartier discoveries are clearly
recognized. The Spanish names along the coast seem to indicate that the
maker used Spanish charts; and probably in part such as are not now
known to exist.[330]
[Illustration: PART OF MÜNSTER’S MAP OF 1545.
This sketch is reduced from a copy in Harvard College Library. This map
was re-engraved in the edition of _Ptolemy_ (1552), and on this last
plate the names of “Islandia” and “Bacalhos” are omitted, and “Thyle”
becomes “Island.”
A different engraving is also found in Münster’s _Cosmographia_ (1554).
Harrisse (nos. 188, 189) refers to unpublished maps of this coast of
about this date, which are preserved in the Musée Correr, and in the
Biblioteca Marciana at Venice, and to accounts of these and others in
Matkovic’s _Schiffer-Karten in den Bibliotheken zu Venedig_, 1863, and
in Berchet’s _Portolani esistenti nelle principali biblioteche_ _di
Venetia_, 1866.]
[Illustration: FROM MEDINA, 1545.
This is sketched from the Harvard College copy. The map is repeated in
the Seville edition of 1563,—the first edition (1545) having appeared
at Valladolid. The _Libro_, etc., is also in Harvard College Library.]
A map preserved in the British Museum belongs to this period. That
library acquired it in 1790, and its Catalogue fixes it before 1536;
but Harrisse, because it does not give the Saguenay, which Cartier
explored in his third voyage, places it after October, 1546. Harrisse
thinks it is based on Portuguese sources, with knowledge also of
Cartier’s discoveries.[331]
Dr. Kohl, in his Washington Collection, has included a map by Joannes
Freire, of which a sketch is annexed. It belonged to a manuscript
portolano when Kohl copied it, in the possession of Santarem, which is
described by Harrisse in his _Cabots_ (p. 220). Freire was a Portuguese
map-maker, who seems to have used Spanish and French sources, besides
those of his own countrymen.
The New England coast belongs to a type well known at this time, and
earlier; and if the position of the legend about Cortereal has any
significance, it places his exploration farther south than is usually
supposed. The names along the St. Lawrence are French, with a trace of
Portuguese,—“Angoulesme,” for instance, becoming “Golesma.”
[Illustration: HENRI II. MAP, 1546.
The key is as follows: 1. Ochelaga. 2. R. du Saĝnay. 3. Assumption.
4. R. Cartier. 5. Bell isle. 6. Bacalliau. 7. C. de Raz. 8. C. aux
Bretons. 9. Encorporada. 10. Y^e du Breton. 11. Y^e de Jhan estienne.
12. Sete citades. 13. C. des isles. 14. Arcipel de estienne Gomez.
Some of these names not in Ribero, nor in other earlier Spanish charts,
indicate that Desceliers had access to maps not now known.]
Kohl placed in the same Collection another map of this region from an
undated portolano in the British Museum (no. 9,814), which in some
parts closely resembles this of Freire; but it is in others so curious
as to deserve record in the annexed sketch. Kohl argues, from the
absence of the St. Lawrence Gulf, that it records the observations of
Denys, of Honfleur, and the early fishermen.
The precise date of the so-called Nicolas Vallard map is not certain;
for that name and the date, 1547, may be the designation and time of
ownership, rather than of its making. The atlas containing it was once
owned by Prince Talleyrand, and belongs to the Sir Thomas Phillipps
Collection. Kohl has conjectured that it is of Portuguese origin,[332]
and includes it in his Collection, now in the State Department at
Washington.
[Illustration: FREIRE, 1546.]
Cesáreo Fernandez Duro, in his _Arca de Noé; libro sexto de las
disquisiciones náuticas_, Madrid, 1881, gives a map of the St. Lawrence
Gulf and River of the sixteenth century. It was found in a volume
relating to the Jesuits in the Library of the Royal Academy of History
at Madrid, and was produced in fac-simile in connection with Duro’s
paper on the discovery of Newfoundland and the early whale and cod
fisheries,—particularly by the Basques. The date of the chart is too
indefinitely fixed to be of much use in reference to the progress of
discovery. Harrisse[333] is inclined to put its date after the close of
the century, even so late as 1603.
Intelligence of Cartier’s tracks had hardly spread as yet into Italy,
judging from the map of Gastaldi in the Italian Ptolemy of 1548.
Mr. Brevoort[334] says of the sketch,—which is annexed,—that it
is a “draught entirely different from any previously published. The
materials for it were probably derived from Ramusio, who had collected
original maps to illustrate his Collection of Voyages, but who
published very few of them. In this particular map we find indications
of Portuguese and French tracings, with but little from Spanish ones.”
Gastaldi is thought to have made the general map which appears in
Ramusio’s third volume (1556), five or six years earlier, or in 1550.
All that it shows for the geography of the St. Lawrence Gulf and River
is a depression in the coast nearly filled by a large island. In 1550,
and again in 1553, the Abbé Desceliers, who has already been shown to
be the author of the Henri II. map, made portolanos which are of the
same size, and bear similar inscriptions: (1) “_Faicte a Arques par
Pierres Desceliers, P. Bre: lan 1550_; and (2) _Faicte a Arques par
Pierre Desceliers, Prebstre_, 1553.”
[Illustration: BRITISH MUSEUM, NO. 9,814.]
No. 1 was in the possession of Professor Negri at Padua, when it was
described in the _Bulletin de la Société de Géographie_, September,
1852, p. 235. It is now in the British Museum.[335] Harrisse[336]
describes it, and says its names are essentially Portuguese. On
Labrador we read: _Terre de Jhan vaaz_ and _G. de manuel pinho_. The
St. Lawrence is not named, but the Bay of Chaleur bears its present
name.
[Illustration: NIC. VALLARD DE DIEPPE.]
No. 2, which is less richly adorned than the other, was intended for
Henri II., as would appear from its bearing that monarch’s arms. Some
inquiry into the life of its maker is given in the _Bulletin de la
Société de Géographie_, September, 1876, p. 295, by Malte-Brun. It is
owned by the Abbé Sigismond de Bubics, of Vienna. Desceliers was born
at Dieppe, and his services to hydrography have been much studied of
late.[337]
[Illustration: FROM GASTALDI’S MAP.
A sketch of map no. 56 in the Italian edition of Ptolemy, 1548,
entitled, “Della terra nova Bacalaos.” The following key explains it:
1. Orbellande. 2. Tierra del Labrador. 3. Tierra del Bacalaos. 4.
Tierra de Nurumberg. 5. C: hermoso. 6. Buena Vista. 7. C: despoir. 8.
C: de ras. 9. Breston. 10. C. Breton. 11. Tierra de los broton. 12. Le
Paradis. 13. Flora. 14. Angoulesme. 15. Larcadia. 16. C: de. s. maia.
Paul Forlani, of Verona, had scarcely advanced beyond this plot of
Gastaldi, when so late as 1565 he published at Venice his _Universale
descrittione_ (Thomassy, _Les Papes géographes_, p. 118).]
Harrisse[338] thinks that the praise bestowed upon Desceliers as the
creator of French hydrography is undeserved, as the excellence of the
maps of his time presupposes a long line of tentative, and even good,
work in cartography; and he holds that Portuguese influence is apparent
from the early part of the sixteenth century.
Wuttke, in his “Geschichte der Erdkunde,”[339] describes and figures
several manuscript American maps from the Collection in the Palazzo
Riccardi at Florence, dated 1550 or thereabout; but they add nothing
to our knowledge respecting the region we are considering. One makes a
large gulf in the northeast of North America, and puts “Terra di la S.
Berton” on its east side, and “Ispagna Nova” on the west. This gulf has
a different shape in two other of the maps, and disappears in some. In
one there is a gulf prolonged to the west in the far north.
At about this date we may place a curious French map, communicated
by Jomard to Kohl, and included by the latter in his Washington
Collection. A sketch of it is annexed.[340] It is manuscript, and
bears neither name nor date. The extreme northeastern part resembles
Rotz’s map of 1542, and the explorations of Cartier and Roberval seem
to be embodied. The breaking-up of Newfoundland would connect it with
Gastaldi’s maps, or the information upon which Gastaldi worked, while
the names on its outer coast are of Portuguese origin, with now a
Spanish and now a French guise. Farther south the coast seems borrowed
from the Spanish maps. The large river emptying into the St. Lawrence
from the south is something unusual on maps of a date previous to
Champlain. If it is the Sorel, Champlain’s discovery of the lake known
by his name was nearly anticipated. If it is the Chaudière, it would
seem to indicate at an early day the possibilities of the passage by
the portage made famous by Arnold in 1775, and of which some inkling
seems to have been had in the union of the St. Lawrence and the Gulf
of Maine not infrequently shown in the early maps. The most marked
feature of the map, however, is the insularity of the continent, with a
connection of the Western Ocean somewhere apparently in the latitude of
South Carolina, similar to that shown in John White’s map, as depicted
in the preceding chapter. It may, of course, have grown out of a belief
in the Sea of Verrazano; or it may have simply been a geographical
gloss put upon Indian reports of great waters west of the limit of
Cartier’s expedition.
[Illustration: THE JOMARD MAP, 155—(?).]
Harrisse[341] puts _circa_ 1553 a fine parchment planisphere, neither
signed nor dated, which is preserved in the Archives of the Marine
in Paris. It shows the English standard on Labrador (Greenland), the
Portuguese on Nova Scotia, and the Spanish at Florida.
[Illustration: PART OF BELLERO’S MAP, 1554.
The whole map is reproduced in Vol. VIII.]
Another popular American map by Bellero was used in the Antwerp
_Gomara_ of 1554, and in several other publications issuing from
that city.[342] It was not more satisfactory, as the annexed sketch
shows,—which indicates that even in Antwerp the full extent of
Cartier’s explorations was not suspected. Nor had Baptista Agnese
divined it in his atlas of the same year, preserved in the Biblioteca
Marciana at Venice. Our sketch is taken from the fifth sheet as given
in a photographic fac-simile[343] issued at Venice in 1881, under the
editing of Professor Theodor Fischer, of Kiel.
An elaborate portolano _Cosmographie universelle, par Guillaume
Le Testu_, and dated in 1555, is described by Harrisse[344] as an
adaptation of a Portuguese atlas, with the addition of some French
names. The northern regions of North America are called _Francia_.
[Illustration: BAPTISTA AGNESE, 1554.]
In 1556, in the third volume of Ramusio’s _Navigationi et viaggi_,[345]
Gastaldi, excelling a little his Ptolemy map of 1548,—a sketch
of which is given on p. 88,—produced his _Terra de Labrador et
Nova Francia_; while for the accounts which Ramusio now printed of
Cartier’s voyage, Gastaldi added the _Terra de Hochelaga nella Nova
Francia_,—which was simply a bird’s-eye view of an Indian camp.[346]
In the same year (1556) the map of Volpellio was not less deceptive.
Two years later (1558) we find an atlas in the British Museum, the work
of Diego Homem, a Portuguese cartographer, which seems to indicate
other information than that afforded by Cartier’s voyages. It is not
so accurate as regards the St. Lawrence as earlier maps are, but shows
additional knowledge of the Bay of Fundy, which comes out for the
first time, and is not again so correctly drawn till we get down to
Lescarbot, half a century later.
[Illustration: VOPELLIO.
Part of the northern portion of Vopellio’s cordiform mappemonde, which
appeared in Girava’s _Cosmographia_, Milan, 1556; cf. _Carter-Brown
Catalogue_, i. 200. The map is very rare; Stevens has issued a
fac-simile of it from the British Museum copy.]
Girolamo Ruscelli, in the Venice edition of Ptolemy, 1561, gave a map
which was evidently derived from the same sources as the Gastaldi, as
the annexed sketch will show.
A mere passing mention may be made of a large engraved map of
America, of Spanish origin, “Auctore Diego Gutierro, Phillipi regis
cosmographo,” dated 1562, because of its curious confusion of names and
localities in its Canadian parts.[347]
[Illustration: GASTALDI IN RAMUSIO.
Kohl, _Discovery of Maine_, p. 226 (who gives a modern rendering of
this map), puts the making of it at about 1550,—two years later than
the appearance of his Ptolemy map.]
The atlas of Baptista Agnese of 1564, preserved in the British
Museum,[348] and another of his of the same date in the Biblioteca
Marciana, still retain some of the features of his earlier portolanos.
He always identifies Greenland with Baccalaos, and still represents
Newfoundland as a part of the main. Harrisse holds that he had not
advanced beyond the Toreno (Venice) map of 1534, and in 1564 knew
little more of the Newfoundland region than was known to Ribero and
Chaves thirty-five years earlier.
[Illustration: HOMEM, 1558.
This sketch follows a reproduction in Kohl’s _Discovery of Maine_, p.
377; cf. _British Museum Catalogue of Manuscript Maps_ (1844), i. 27;
Harrisse, _Cabots_, p. 243. Various atlases of Homem are preserved in
Europe. This 1558 map (giving both Americas) is included in Kohl’s
Collection at Washington, as well as another map of 1568, following a
manuscript preserved in the Royal Library at Dresden, purporting to
have been made by “Diegus Cosmographus” at Venice. Kohl thinks him the
Diego Homem of the 1558 map, which the 1568 map closely resembles,
though it makes the northern coast of America more perfect than in the
earlier draft.]
The Catalogue of the King’s maps in the British Museum puts under 1562
a map entitled, _Universale descrittione di tutta la terra cognosciuta
da Paulo di Forlani_.
[Illustration: RUSCELLI, 1561.
A sketch of his _Tierra Nueva_. The key is as follows: 1. Lacadia.
2. Angouleme. 3. Flora. 4. Le Paradis. 5. P. Real. 6. Brisa I. 7.
Tierra de los Breton. 8. C. Breton. 9. Breston. 10. C. de Ras. 11. C.
de Spoir. 12. Buena Vista. 13. Monte de Trigo. 14. Das Chasteaulx.
15. Terra Nova. 16. C. Hermoso. 17. S. Juan. 18. Isola de Demoni. 19.
Orbellanda. 20. Y. Verde. 21. Maida.
There are reproductions of this map in Kohl’s _Discovery of Maine_,
p. 233, and Lelewel, _Géographie du Moyen-Age_, p. 170; cf. Harrisse,
_Cabots_, p. 237; and his _Notes, pour servir à l’histoire ... de la
Nouvelle France_, etc., no. 294.]
Thomassy,[349] however, cites it as published in Venice in 1565, and
says it strongly resembles Gastaldi’s map, and is, perhaps, the same
one credited to Forlani under 1570, as showing the recent discoveries
in Canada. It is contained in the so-called Roman atlas of Lafreri,
_Tavole moderne di geografia_, Rome and Venice, 1554-1572.[350]
[Illustration: ZALTIERI, 1566.]
Next in chronological order comes an engraved map (15½ × 10½)
with the following title: _Il disegno del discoperto della Nova Franza
... Venetijs aeneis formis Bolognini Zalterij, Anno M.D. LXVI_.[351]
It gives the whole breadth of the continent, and is very erroneous in
the eastern parts. The “R. S. Lorenzo” runs southeast from a large
lake into the ocean between Lacadia and Baccalaos, while Ochelaga and
Stadaconi[352] are on a river running east farther to the north, whose
headwaters are in a region called “Canada.” The island C. Berton, as
well as Sable Island (Y. Darena), would seem to indicate that the coast
to the north of them is intended for the modern Nova Scotia, which
would make the river running from the lake the Penobscot, and the group
of islands east of Baccalaos a disjointed Newfoundland, compelling
the river rising near Canada to do duty for the St. Lawrence. The
large island, “Gamas,” is perhaps a reminiscence of Gomez.[353] The
map in these parts is so confused, however, that its chief interest
is to illustrate the strange commingling of error and truth, “which
we have received lately,” as the inscription reads, “from the latest
explorations of the French,”—which must, if it means anything, refer
to Roberval. The map has signs neither of latitude nor longitude. In
general contour it resembles other Italian maps of this time, like
those of Forlani, Porcacchi, etc. Zaltieri differs from Forlani,
however, in separating America from Asia.
The great mappemonde of Gerard Mercator, introducing his well-known
projection, followed in 1569. The annexed sketch indicates its
important bearing on a portion of North American cartography. The
St. Lawrence is extended much farther inland than ever before, with
no signs of the Great Lakes, and it is made to rise in the southerly
part of the region, put in modern maps west of the Mississippi,
among mountains which also form a watershed westerly to the Gulf of
California and southerly to the Gulf of Mexico.
[Illustration: MERCATOR, 1569.
The key is as follows: 1. Hic mare est dulcium aquarum, cujus terminum
ignorari Canadenses ex relatu Saguenaiesium aiunt. 2. Hoc fluvio
facilior est navigatio in Saguenai. 3. Hochelaga. 4. P^o de Jacques
Cartier. 5. Belle ysle. 6. C. de Razo. 7. C. de Breton. 8. Y. della
Assumptione. 9. G. de Chaleur.
A fac-simile of this map is given on a later page.]
Kohl[354] sums up his essay on this map as follows: “It is a remarkable
fact, that while the icy seas and coasts of Greenland, Labrador,
Newfoundland, and Canada were depicted on the maps of the sixteenth
century with a high degree of truth, our coasts of New England and New
York were badly drawn so late as 1569; and their cartography remained
very defective through nearly the whole of the sixteenth century.”
A close resemblance to Mercator is seen in the rendering of Ortelius
in the first (1570) edition of his _Theatrum orbis terrarum_.[355]
The contour and general details of North America, as established by
Mercator and Ortelius, became a type much copied in the later years
of the sixteenth century. The woodcut map in Thevet’s _Cosmographie
universelle_ (1575), for instance, is chiefly based on Ortelius, though
Thevet claimed to have based it on personal observation in 1556.[356]
[Illustration: ORTELIUS, 1570.]
The maps in De la Popellinière’s _Les trois mondes_ (1582), that of
Cornelius Judæus (1589), those in Maffeius’s _Historiarum Indicarum
libri xvi._ (1593), in Magninus’s _Geographia_ (1597), and in Münster’s
_Cosmographia_ (1598),—all follow this type. Reference may also be
made to a Spanish mappemonde of 1573 which is figured in Lelewel,[357]
an engraved Spanish map in the British Museum, evidently based on
Ortelius, and assigned by the Museum authorities to 1600; but Kohl, who
has a copy in his Washington Collection, thinks it is probably earlier.
A similar westward prolongation of the St. Lawrence River is found in
a “Typus orbis terrarum,” dated 1574, which, with a smaller map of
similar character, appeared in the _Enchiridion Philippi Gallæi, per
Hugonem Favolium_, Antwerp, 1585. Quite another view prevailed at the
same time with other geographers, and also became a type, as seen in
the map given by Porcacchi as “Mondo nuovo” in his _L’ isole piu famose
del mondo_, published at Venice in 1572, in which he mixes geographical
traits and names in a curious manner. It is not easy to trace the
origin of some of this cartographer’s points.
A theory of connecting the Atlantic and the St. Lawrence on the line
of what is apparently the Hudson River, which had been advanced by
Ruscelli in the general map of the world in the 1561 edition of
Ptolemy, was developed in 1578 by Martines in his map of the world in
the British Museum, from a copy of which in the Kohl Collection the
accompanied sketch is taken.[358]
What is known as Dr. Dee’s map was presented by him to Queen Elizabeth
in 1580, and was made for him, if not by him. It is preserved in the
British Museum, and the sketch here given follows Dr. Kohl’s copy in
his Washington Collection. Dee used mainly Spanish authorities, as many
of his names signify; and though he was a little too early to recognize
Drake’s New Albion, he was able to depict Frobisher’s Straits.[359]
[Illustration: PORCACCHI, 1572.
This is sketched from the copy in the Harvard College Library. The book
has a somewhat similar delineation in an elliptical mappemonde, of
which a fac-simile is given in Stevens’s _Historical and Geographical
Notes_. The bibliography of Porcacchi is examined in another volume.]
The peculiarities of three engraved English maps of about this time
are not easy to trace. The first map is that in Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s
_Discourse_;[360] the second is the rude drawing which accompanied
Beste’s _True Discourse_ relating to Frobisher;[361] the third, that of
Michael Lok,[362] in Hakluyt’s _Divers Voyages_. Hakluyt, in the map
which he added to the edition of Peter Martyr published in Paris in
1587, conformed much more nearly to the latest knowledge.[363]
We find what is perhaps the latest instance of New France being made
to constitute the eastern part of Asia, in the map (1587) given in
Myritius’s _Opusculum geographicum rarum_, published at Ingoldstadt
in 1590.[364] A group of small islands stands in a depression of the
coast, and they are marked “Insulæ Corterealis.” It carries back the
geographical views more than half a century.
[Illustration: MARTINES, 1578.]
In the Molineaux globe of 1592,[365] preserved in London, we find
a small rudimentary lake, which seems to be the beginning of the
cartographical history of the great inland seas,—a germ expanded in
his map of 1600[366] into his large “Lacke of Tadenac.” Meanwhile Peter
Plancius embodied current knowledge in his well-known map of the world.
So far as the St. Lawrence Valley goes, it was not much different from
the type which Ortelius had established in 1570. Blundeville, in his
_Exercises_ (1622, p. 523), describing Plancius’ map, speaks of it as
“lately put forth in the yeere of our Lord 1592;” but in the Dutch
edition of Linschoten in 1596 it is inscribed: _Orbis terrarum ...
auctore Petro Plancio_, 1594.
[Illustration: JUDÆIS, 1593.]
It appeared re-engraved in the Latin Linschoten of 1599; but in this
plate it is not credited to Plancius. The map which took its place in
the English Linschoten, edited by Wolfe, in 1598, was the same recut
Ortelius map which Hakluyt had used in his 1589 edition. This was the
work of Arnoldus Florentius à Langren, though Wolfe omits the author’s
name.[367]
[Illustration: JOHN DEE, 1580.]
In the map, “Americæ pars borealis, Florida, Baccalaos, Canada,
Corterealis, a Cornelio de Judæis in lucem edita, 1593,” which appeared
in that year in his _Speculum orbis terrarum_, Mercator and Ortelius
seem to be the source of much of its Arctic geography; but its Lake
Conibas, with its fresh water, records very likely some Indian story
of the Great Lakes lying away up the Ottawa,—which is presumably the
river rising in the Saguenay country. A legend on the map says that
its fresh water is of an extent unknown to the Canadians, who are, as
another legend says, the nations filling up the country from Baccalaos
to Florida.
[Illustration: DE BRY, 1596.]
It will be observed that to the northwest the Zeno map[368] has been
made tributary, while one name, “Golfo quarré,” is not in the place
usually given to it, since it is generally the alternative name of the
Gulf of St. Lawrence. The nomenclature of the coast from Cape Breton
south follows the Spanish names; and though Virginia is recognized by
name, there is no indication of the new geography of that region.[369]
[Illustration: FROM WYTFLIET.]
De Bry in 1596 added little that was new; and much the same may be said
of the maps in the edition of Ptolemy published at Cologne in 1597, and
numbered 2, 29, 34, and 35.[370]
New France is also shown in the “Nova Francia et Canada, 1597,” which
is no. 18 of the series of maps in Wytfliet’s Continuation of Ptolemy.
Others in the same work show contiguous regions:—
No. 15. “Conibas regio cum vicinis gentibus,”—Hudson’s Bay and the
region south of it.
No. 17. “Norumbega et Virginia,”—from 37° to 47° north latitude.
No. 19. “Estotilandia et Laboratoris,”—Labrador and Greenland, mixed
with the Zeni geography.
[Illustration: QUADUS, 1600.]
The map by Mathias Quaden, or Quadus, in the _Geographisches Handbuch_,
was published at Cologne in 1600, bearing the title, “Novi orbis pars
borealis.” The northeastern parts seem to be based on Mercator and
Ortelius. A marginal note at “Corterealis” defines that navigator’s
explorations as extending north to the point of what is called
Estotilant. In its Lake Conibas it follows the 1593 map of Judæis.
* * * * *
In this enumeration of the maps showing the Gulf and River St.
Lawrence down to the close of the seventeenth century, by no means
all of the reduplications have been mentioned; but enough has been
indicated to trace the somewhat unstable development of hydrographical
knowledge in this part of North America. Most interesting, among the
maps of the latter part of the century which have been omitted, are,
perhaps, the _Erdglobus_ of Philip Apian (1576), given in Wieser,
_Magalhâes-Strasse_, p. 72; the mappemonde in Cellarius’ _Speculum
orbis terrarum_ (Antwerp, 1578); the map of the world in Apian’s
_Cosmographie augmentée, par Gemma Frison_ (Antwerp, 1581, 1584, and
the Dutch edition of 1598); the map of the world by A. Millo (1582),
as noted in the _British Museum Manuscripts_, no. 27,470; that in the
_Relationi universali di Giovanni Botero_, Venice (1595, 1597, 1598,
1603); the earliest English copperplate map in Broughton’s _Concent
of Scripture_ (1596); the _Caert-Thresoor_ of Langennes, Amsterdam,
1598; and, in addition, the early editions of the atlases of Mercator,
Hondius, Jannsen, and Conrad Loew, with the globes of Blaeuw.
The maps in Langenes were engraved by Kærius, and they were repeated
in the French editions of 1602 and 1610 (?). They were also reproduced
in the _Tabularum geographicarum contractarum libri_ of Bertius,
Amsterdam, 1606, whose text was used, with the same maps, in Langenes’
_Handboek van alle landen_, edited by Viverius, published at Amsterdam
in 1609. In 1618 a French edition of Bertius was issued by Hondius at
Amsterdam with an entirely new set of maps, including a general map of
America and one of “Nova Francia et Virginia.”
CHAPTER III.
CHAMPLAIN.
BY THE REV. EDMUND F. SLAFTER.
FROM 1603 to 1635 the ruling spirit and prominent figure in French
exploration and colonization in America was Samuel de Champlain.
His temperament and character, as well as his education and early
associations, fitted him for his destined career. His home in the
little town of Brouage, in Saintonge, offered to his early years more
or less acquaintance with military and commercial life. He acquired a
mastery of the science of navigation and cartography according to the
best methods of that period. His knowledge of the art of pictorial
representation was imperfect, but nevertheless useful to him in the
construction of his numerous maps and topographical illustrations.
He wrote the French language with clearness, and without provincial
disfigurement. Several years in the army as quartermaster gave him
valuable lessons and rich experience in many departments of business.
Two years in the West Indies, visiting not only its numerous Spanish
settlements, including the City of Mexico on the northern and New
Grenada on the southern continent, gave him an intimate and thorough
knowledge of Spanish colonization.
With such a preparation as this, at the age of thirty-five or
thirty-six, Champlain entered, in a subordinate position, upon his
earliest voyage to the Atlantic coast of North America. During
the preceding sixty years the French had taken little interest in
discovery, and had made no progress in colonization, though their trade
on the coast may have been kept up.[371]
In 1603, Amyar de Chastes, a venerable governor of Dieppe, conceived
the idea of planting a colony in the New World, of removing thither
his family, and of finishing there his earthly career. He accordingly
obtained from Henry IV. a commission; and, associating with himself in
the enterprise several merchants, he sent out an expedition to make a
general survey, to fix upon a suitable place for a settlement, and to
determine what provision would be necessary for the accommodation of
his colony. De Chastes invited Champlain to accompany this expedition.
No proposition could have been more agreeable to his tastes. He
accepted it with alacrity, provided, however, the assent of the King
should first be obtained. This permission was readily accorded by
Henry IV., but was coupled with the command that he should bring back
a careful and detailed report of his explorations. Champlain was thus
made the geographer of the King. It is doubtless from this appointment,
unsought, unexpected, and almost accidental, that we are favored with
Champlain’s unparalleled journals, which have come down to us rich in
incident, prolific in important information, and covering nearly the
whole period of his subsequent career.
The expedition set on foot by Amyar de Chastes left Honfleur on the
15th of March, 1603. It consisted of two vessels, one commanded by Pont
Gravé, a distinguished fur-trader and merchant, who had previously
made several voyages to the New World, and the other by Sieur Prevert,
both of them from the city of St. Malo. Two Indians, who had been
brought to France by Pont Gravé on a former voyage, accompanied the
expedition, and made themselves useful in the investigation which
ensued. Delayed by gales lasting many days, and by floating fields
of ice sometimes fifteen or twenty miles in extent, the company were
forty days in reaching the harbor of Tadoussac. Here, a short distance
from their anchorage, they found encamped a large number of savages,
estimated at a thousand, who were celebrating a recent victory. These
savages were representatives from the three great allied northern
families or tribes,—the Etechemins of New Brunswick and Maine, the
Montagnais of the northern banks of the St. Lawrence about Tadoussac,
and the Algonquins, coming from the vast region watered by the Ottawa
and its tributaries. They had just returned from a conflict with the
Iroquois near the mouth of the Richelieu. War between these tribes was
of long standing. All traditions as to its beginning are shadowy and
obscure; but it had clearly been in progress several generations, and
probably several centuries, renewing its horrors in unceasing revenge
and in constantly recurring cruelties. For the thirty years which
Champlain was yet to spend as the neighbor of these tribes such hostile
encounters were, as we shall see, a continual obstacle to his plans and
a steady source of anxiety.
On the arrival at Tadoussac, preparations were at once made for
an exploration of the St. Lawrence. While these were in progress,
Champlain explored the Saguenay for the distance of thirty or forty
miles, noting its extraordinary character, its profound depth, its
rapid current, and impressed with the lofty and sterile mountains
between whose perpendicular walls its pent-up waters had forced their
way, moving down to the ocean with a heavy and irresistible flood. This
survey of the Saguenay was probably the first ever made by a European
explorer. At all events, Champlain’s description is the earliest which
has come down to us.
On the 18th of June, leaving Tadoussac in a barque, and taking with
them a skiff made expressly for ascending rapids and penetrating
shallow streams, Champlain, Pont Gravé, and a complement of sailors,
with several Indians as guides and assistants, proceeded up the
St. Lawrence. From Tadoussac to Montreal they explored the bays and
tributary rivers, observing the character of the soil, the forests,
the animal and vegetable products, including all the elements of
present and prospective wealth. On reaching the Lachine Rapids above
Montreal, their progress was abruptly terminated. Neither their barque
nor their skiff could stem the current. They continued on foot along
the shore for several miles, but soon found it inexpedient with their
present equipment to proceed farther. Having obtained from the Indians
important, if not very definite, information concerning the country,
rivers, and lakes above the falls, and having likewise learned from
them that in the lake region far to the north native copper existed
and had been fabricated into articles of ornament, they returned to
Tadoussac.
Champlain immediately organized another party to examine the southern
shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Skirting along the coast, they
touched at Gaspé, Mal-Bay, and Isle Percée, which were at that time
(1603) important stations, annually visited by fishermen of different
nations. Soon after reaching the southern coast they met a troop of
savages who were transporting arrows and moose-meat to exchange for the
skins of the beaver and marten with the more northern tribes whom they
expected to find at Tadoussac. Having obtained such information as they
desired of the country still farther south, and of the copper mines in
the region about the Bay of Fundy, Champlain’s party passed directly
from Gaspé to the northern side of the Gulf, touching somewhere near
the Seven Islands, and thence coasted along the inhospitable shores of
the northern side till they reached the harbor of Tadoussac. Having
completed their explorations and secured a valuable cargo of furs,
which was a subordinate purpose of the expedition, they returned to
France, arriving at Havre de Grâce on the 20th of September, 1603.
On their arrival Champlain received the painful news of the death of
Amyar de Chastes, under whose auspices the expedition had been sent
out. This put an end to the present scheme of a colonial plantation.
Champlain applied himself immediately to the preparation of an
elaborate report of his explorations, and in a few months it was
printed under the sanction of the King and given to the public. This
book proved of importance at that early stage of French colonization in
America; it covered, indeed, nearly the same ground which had been gone
over by Cartier sixty years before. But the survey had been more exact
and thorough; for he had observed more of the harbors and penetrated
more of the tributaries both of the river and of the gulf. The pictures
which he presented were more completely drawn, and detailed more
accurately the sources of wealth, while they conveyed the practical
information which was needed by those who were about to embark in the
colonization of the New World. This fresh statement of Champlain,
virtually with the royal commendation, awakened in the public mind, as
might well be expected, a new interest, and enterprising merchants in
different cities of France were not wanting who were ready to invest
their means in the new undertaking.
This union of colonization and mercantile adventure was incongruous in
itself, and proved a constant impediment to settlements. The merchant
made his investments for no reason but to obtain immediate returns in
large dividends. On such conditions of profit, money for the necessary
outlays could be obtained, but upon no other. This put into the hand of
the merchant or adventurer a power which he exercised almost entirely
for his own advantage. What was necessary for the prosperity of the
colony which he seemed to be founding, he absorbed in frequent and
excessive dividends. The avarice of the merchant thus hampered the true
colonial spirit, and his demands consumed the profits which should
have given solid strength and expansion to the colony. This condition
was a constant source of annoyance and discouragement to Champlain,
and against it he found it necessary to contend throughout his whole
career, but with not very satisfactory results.[372]
It was two months after the return of this first Canadian voyage of
Champlain when the commission was granted to the Sieur de Monts of
which an account is given in the following chapter. De Monts had
succeeded in forming an association of merchants, who were lured by the
prospects of the profits of the fur-trade. Taking himself the charge
of one of his vessels, of one hundred and fifty tons, and putting Pont
Gravé over the other, of one hundred and twenty tons, accompanied by
several noblemen, among whom was Poutrincourt, and with Champlain still
in the capacity of geographer of the King, they led forth their company
of one hundred and twenty men,—laborers, artisans, and soldiers,—of
whom about two thirds were to remain as colonists.
De Monts, who had been in the Gulf of St. Lawrence with De Chauvin
several years before, decided to seek out a suitable location for
his colony in a milder climate, which he could well do without going
beyond the limits of his grant. The expedition reached the shores of
Nova Scotia early in May, where they captured and confiscated several
vessels engaged in a contraband fur-trade. Pont Gravé proceeded
through the Strait of Canseau to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in order to
prosecute more successfully the fur-trade, by which the expenses of the
outfit were to be met.
Champlain’s duties as an explorer and geographer began at once. He
proceeded in a barque of about eight tons, accompanied by several
gentlemen, sailing in advance of the vessel, exploring the southern
coast of the peninsula of Nova Scotia, touching at numerous points,
visiting the harbors and headlands, giving them names, and making
drawings, until he reached St. Mary’s Bay, within the opening of
the Bay of Fundy, where he discovered several mines of silver and
iron. Subsequently having been joined by De Monts, continuing his
examinations, he entered Annapolis Harbor, crept along the western
shore of Nova Scotia, and passing over to New Brunswick, skirted the
whole of its southern coast, and entered the Harbor of St. John; then
exploring Passamaquoddy Bay as far as the mouth of the River St. Croix,
he finally reached the island which the patentee selected as the seat
of his new colony.
Champlain—undoubtedly the best engineer in the party—was immediately
directed to lay out the grounds and fix upon the situation and
arrangement of the buildings, which were forthwith erected.[373]
This settlement, here and at Port Royal,[374] under the charter of De
Monts, continued for three years, making, as might well be expected,
but little progress as a colony, the principal achievement being
the cultivation of some small patches of ground, the raising of a
few specimens of European grains, and of garden vegetables for its
own use. It has consequently very little historical significance in
itself. But it served in the mean time a very important purpose as
a base, necessary and convenient, for the extensive explorations
made by Champlain on the Atlantic coast, stretching from Canseau, at
the eastern extremity of Nova Scotia, to the Vineyard Sound, on the
southern shores of Massachusetts. These geographical surveys occupied
him three summers, while the intervening winters were employed in
executing a general chart of the whole region, together with many local
maps of the numerous bays, harbors, and rivers along the coast.[375]
The first of these surveys was made during the month of September,
1604. This expedition was under the sole direction of Champlain, and
was made in a barque of seventeen or eighteen tons, manned by twelve
sailors, and with two Indians as guides. He examined the coast from the
mouth of the St. Croix to the Penobscot. He was especially interested
in the beautiful islands which fringe the coast, particularly in Mount
Desert and Isle Haute, to which he gave the names which they still
bear. Sailing up the Penobscot, called by the Indians the Pentegöet,
and by Europeans who had passed along the coast the Norumbegue, he
explored this river to the head of tide-water, at the site of the
present city of Bangor, where a fall in the river intercepted his
progress. In the interior, along the shores of the river, he saw
scarcely any inhabitants; and by a very careful examination he was
satisfied beyond a doubt that the story, which had gained currency from
a period as far back as the time of Alfonse, about a large native town
in the vicinity, whose inhabitants had attained to some of the higher
arts of civilization, was wholly without foundation. He not only saw
no such town, but could find no remains or other evidence that one had
ever existed. Having spent nearly a month in his explorations, he
obtained a good knowledge of the country and much information as to the
inhabitants, when having exhausted his provisions, he returned to his
winter quarters at De Monts’ Island.
The next expedition was made early in the following summer, after it
had been decided to abandon the island. Accordingly, on the 18th of
June, 1605, De Monts himself, with Champlain as geographer, several
gentlemen and twenty sailors, together with an Indian and his wife,
necessary guides and interpreters, set sail for the purpose of finding
a more eligible situation somewhere on the shores of the present New
England. Passing along the coast which had been explored the preceding
autumn, they soon came to the mouth of the Kennebec. Entering this
river, and bearing to the easterly side, they sailed through a tidal
creek, now called Back River, into the waters of the Sheepscot, and
passing round the southern point of Westport Island, skirting its
eastern shore, they came to the site of the present town of Wiscasset.
Lingering a short time, exchanging courtesies with a band of Indians
assembled there, and entering into a friendly alliance with them, they
proceeded down the western shores of Westport, and passing through
the Sasanoa, again entered the Kennebec, and sailed up as far as
Merrymeeting Bay, where, by their conference with the Indians whom they
met in the Sheepscot, they were led to believe they should meet Marchin
and Sasinou, two famous chiefs of that region, whose friendship it was
good policy to secure. Failing of this interview, they returned by a
direct course to the mouth of the Kennebec.
Champlain having made a sketch of the mouth of the river, the islands
and sandbars, with the course and depth of the main channel, the party
moved on towards the west. Examining the coast as they proceeded,
they passed without observing the excellent harbor of Portland,
concealed as it is by the beautiful islands clustering about it, and
next entered the bay of the Saco, which stretches from Cape Elizabeth
to Fletcher’s Neck. Here they observed strong contrasts between the
natives and those of the coast farther east. Their habits, mode of
life, and language were all different. Hitherto the Indians whom they
had seen were nomadic, living wholly by fishing and the chase. Here
they were sedentary, and subsisted mainly on the products of the soil.
Their settlement was surrounded by fine fields of Indian corn, gardens
of squashes, beans, and pumpkins, and ample patches of tobacco. They
observed also on the bank of the river a fort, which was made of lofty
palisades. After tarrying two days in this bay, making ample sketches
of the whole, including the islands, the place now known as Old Orchard
Beach, and the dwellings on the shore, and having bestowed on the
natives some small presents as tokens of gratitude for cordial and
friendly entertainment, the French, on the 12th July, once more weighed
anchor. Keeping close in, following the sinuosities of the shore, and
lingering here and there, they observed everything as they passed, and
on the morning of the 16th arrived at Cape Anne.
[Illustration: PORT ST. LOUIS.
[From the edition of 1613. Key: _A_, anchoring-place. _B_, channel.
_C_, two islands (the left-hand one seems to be what is now known
as Saquish, a peninsula connected at present with the Gurnet Head,
here marked _H_; the right-hand one is the present Clark’s Island).
_D_, sand-hills (apparently the low sand-hills of Duxbury beach).
_E_, shoals. _F_, cabins and tillage ground of the natives. _G_,
beaching-place of our barque (apparently the present Powder Point).
_H_, land like an island, covered with wood (the present Gurnet
Head). _I_, high promontory, seen four or five leagues at sea. This
promontory has usually been called Manomet, and if the right-hand of
the map is north, it has the correct bearing from the Gurnet; but it
is in that case very strange that so marked a feature as the sand-spit
known as Plymouth Beach is not indicated, and no sign is given of the
conspicuous eminence known as Captain’s Hill. If, however, we consider
the top of the map north (and the engraver may be accountable for
the erroneous fashioning of the points of the compass), it becomes
at once perfectly comprehensible as a sketch of that part of the bay
known as Duxbury Harbor, and would not, accordingly, show that part
of the shore on which the Pilgrims landed. In this view the hill _I_
becomes Captain’s Hill, and the rest of the plan, though but rudely
conforming to the lines of Duxbury Harbor, is much more satisfactory in
its topographical correspondences than the other theory would allow.
See the modern map of the harbor in Vol. III. chap. viii. Cf. further
Davis’s _Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth_, p. 35, and the papers in the
_Mag. of Amer. Hist._, December, 1882.
It will be remembered that the French found in all this region populous
communities, which had been greatly reduced or destroyed by a plague
in 1616 and 1617, before the English made their settlements. Mr. Adams
has grouped the authorities on this point in his Morton’s _New English
Canaan_, p. 133.
The French accounts of these Massachusetts Indians may be compared
with the later English descriptions of Smith, Winslow, Wood, Morton,
Williams, Lechford, Josselyn, and Gookin.
The French continued to frequent the Massachusetts coast for some
years. We have accounts of two of their ships, at least, which were
lost there between 1614 and 1619,—one on Cape Cod, two of whose crew
were reclaimed by Dermer (Bradford’s _Plymouth Plantation_, 98), and
the other in Boston Harbor, whose crew were killed. Cf. 4 _Mass. Hist.
Soc. Coll._, iv. 479, 489, in Phinehas Pratt’s narrative; Morton’s _New
English Canaan_, Adams’s edition, p. 131; Mather’s _Magnalia_, book i.
chap. ii.—ED.]]
Their stay here was brief, its chief feature being an interview with
the natives, whom they found cordial and highly intelligent. The
Indians made an accurate drawing, with a crayon furnished by Champlain,
of the outline of Massachusetts Bay, and indicated correctly their six
tribes and chiefs by as many pebbles, which they skilfully arranged for
the purpose.
Holding short interviews with the natives at different points,
threading their way among the islands which besprinkle the bay, many
of which, as well as ample fields on the mainland, were covered
with waving corn, they sailed into Boston Harbor. The next day they
proceeded along the south shore, and on the 19th entered and made
such survey as they could of the little bay of Plymouth, destined a
few years later to become the seat of the first permanent English
settlement in New England. Besides a description of the Indian methods
and implements of fishing, in which vocation he found them engaged,
and of the harbor and its surroundings, Champlain has left us a sketch
of the bay, to which he gave the name of Port St. Louis. This sketch
is certainly creditable, when we bear in mind that it was made without
surveys or measurements of any kind, and during a hasty visit of a
few hours. Leaving Plymouth Harbor, and keeping along the coast, they
made the complete circuit of the bay, and rounding the point of Cape
Cod they sailed in a southerly direction, and entered an insignificant
tidal inlet now known as Nauset Harbor. Here they lingered several
days, making inland excursions, gathering much valuable information
relating to the Indians, their mode of dress, ornamentation, the
structure of their dwellings, the preparation of their food, and the
cultivation of the soil. These particulars did not differ essentially
from what they had observed at Saco, on the coast of Maine, and
indicated clearly that the people belonged to the same great family.
Their provisions being nearly exhausted, it now became necessary to
turn back. On reaching the mouth of the Kennebec, they learned that an
English ship had been anchored at the island of Monhegan, which proved
to be the “Archangel,” in command of Captain George Weymouth, who was
making an exploration on the coast at that time, under the patronage
of the Earl of Southampton. The conflicting claims of the French and
English to the territory which Champlain was now exploring will come
into prominence later in our story. On arriving at De Monts Island, it
became necessary to hasten arrangements for the removal of the colony
to a situation less exposed; but in all the explorations thus far made
they had found no location which was in all respects satisfactory for
a permanent settlement. They determined, therefore, to transfer the
colony at once to Annapolis Basin, where the climate was milder and the
situation better protected. The buildings were forthwith taken down
and transported to the new site. De Monts, the governor, soon after
departed for France, in order to obtain from the King assistance in
establishing and enlarging the domain of his colony. The command in his
absence was placed in the hands of Pont Gravé. Champlain determined
also to remain, in the hope of “making new explorations towards
Florida.”
During the early autumn Champlain made an excursion across the bay to
St. John, whence, piloted by an Indian chief of that place, he visited
Advocate’s Harbor, near the head of the Bay of Fundy, in search of a
copper mine. A few small bits of that metal, which was all he found,
offered little inducement for further search.
The colony, in their new quarters at Port Royal, suffered less from
the severity of the climate during the winter than they had done on
the preceding one at De Monts Island. Nevertheless the dreaded _mal
de la terre_, or scurvy, made its appearance, and twelve out of the
forty-five settlers died of that disease. Early in the spring several
attempts were made to continue their explorations along the southern
coast; but, much to their disappointment, they were as often driven
back by disastrous storms. The supplies needed for the succeeding
winter were much delayed, and did not come till late in July, when De
Poutrincourt arrived as lieutenant of De Monts, and took command at
Port Royal.
On the 5th of September an expedition under De Poutrincourt,
together with Champlain as geographer, departed to continue their
explorations.[376] It was Champlain’s opinion that they should sail
directly for Nauset Harbor, where their previous examinations had
terminated, and from that point make a careful survey of the coast
farther south. Had his counsels prevailed, they might, during the
season, have completed the exploration of the whole New England coast.
But De Poutrincourt desired to examine personally what had already been
explored by previous expeditions. In this re-survey they discovered
Gloucester Harbor, which they had not seen before. They found it
spacious, well protected, with good depth of water, surrounded by
attractive scenery, and therefore named it _Le Beauport_, the beautiful
harbor. It was fringed with the dwellings and gardens of two hundred
natives. In their mode of life they were sedentary, like those at Saco
and at Boston, and they gave their guests a friendly welcome, offering
them the products of the soil,—grapes just from the vines, squashes
of different varieties, the trailing-bean which is still cultivated
in New England, and the Jerusalem artichoke, fresh and crisp, the
product of their industry and care. After several days at Gloucester,
the voyagers proceeded on their course, and finally rounded Cape Cod,
touched again at Nauset, and after infinite trouble and no less danger
crept round Monomoy Point and entered Chatham Harbor, where they found
it necessary to remain some days for the repair of their disabled
barque. From Chatham as a base they made numerous inland excursions,
and also sailed along the shore as far as the Vineyard Sound, which was
the southern terminus of Champlain’s explorations on the coast of New
England. The work of exploration having thus been completed, spreading
their sails for the homeward voyage, touching at many points on their
way, they reached Annapolis Harbor on the 14th of November.
The winter that followed was employed by the colonists in such minor
enterprises as might seem to bear on their future prospects. Near
the end of the following May a ship arrived from France bringing a
letter from De Monts, the patentee, stating that by order of the
King his monopoly of the fur-trade had been abolished, and directing
the immediate return of the colony to France. The cause of this
sudden reverse of fortune to De Monts, of this withdrawal of his
exclusive right to the fur-trade, is easily explained. The seizure
and confiscation of several ships and their valuable cargoes on the
coast of Nova Scotia had awakened a personal hostility in influential
circles, and they easily represented that the monopoly of De Monts was
destroying an important branch of national commerce, and diverting to
the emolument of a private gentleman revenues which belonged to the
State.
Preparations for the return to France were undertaken without delay.
Meanwhile two excursions were made, one, accompanied by Lescarbot the
historian, to St. John and to the seat of the first settlement at De
Monts Island; another, under De Poutrincourt, accompanied by Champlain,
to the head of the Bay of Fundy. The bulk of the colonists left near
the end of July, in several barques, to rendezvous at Canseau, while De
Poutrincourt and Champlain remained till the 11th of August, when they
followed in a shallop, keeping close to the shore, which gave Champlain
an opportunity to examine the coast from La Hève to Canseau,—the last
of his explorations on the Atlantic coast.
As the geographer of the King, Champlain had been engaged in his
specific duties three years and nearly four months. His was altogether
pioneer work. At this time there was not a European settlement of any
kind on the eastern borders of North America, from Newfoundland on
the north to Mexico on the south. No exploration of any significance
of the vast region traversed by him had then been made. Gosnold and
Pring had touched the coast; but their brief stay and imperfect and
shadowy notes are to the historian tantalizing and only faintly
instructive.[377] Other navigators had indeed passed along the shore,
sighting the headlands of Cape Anne and Cape Cod, and had observed some
of the wide-stretching bays and the outflow of the larger rivers;[378]
but none of them had attempted even a hasty exploration. Champlain’s
surveys, stretching over more than a thousand miles of sea-coast, are
ample, and approximately accurate. It would seem that his local as well
as his general maps depended simply on the observations of a careful
eye; of necessity they lacked the measurements of an elaborate survey.
Of their kind they are creditable examples, and evince a certain ready
skill. The nature and products of the soil, the wild, teeming life
of forest and field, are pictured in his text with minuteness and
conscientious care. His descriptions of the natives, their mode of
life, their dress, their occupations, their homes, their intercourse
with each other, their domestic and civil institutions as far as they
had any, are clear and well defined, and as the earliest on record,
having been made before Indian life became modified by intercourse with
Europeans, will always be regarded by the historian as of the highest
importance.
On the 3d of September, 1607, the colonists, having assembled by
agreement at Canseau, embarked for France, and arrived at St. Malo
early in October. Champlain hastened to lay before De Monts the results
of his explorations, together with his maps and drawings. The zeal of
De Monts was rekindled by the recital, notwithstanding the losses he
had sustained and the disappointments he had encountered. Specimens
of grain, corn, wheat, rye, barley, and oats, together with two or
three braces of the beautiful brant goose, which had been bred from
the shell, were presented to the King as products of New France and
as an earnest of its future wealth. Henry IV. was not insensible to
the merits of the faithful De Monts, and he granted him a renewal of
his monopoly of the fur-trade, but only for a single year. With this
limitation of his privilege, stimulated by the futile hope of getting
it extended at its expiration, De Monts fitted out two vessels,—one to
be commanded by Pont Gravé, and devoted exclusively to the fur-trade,
while the other was to be employed in transporting men and material
for a settlement or plantation on the River St. Lawrence. Of this
expedition Champlain was constituted lieutenant-governor,—an office
which he subsequently continued to hold in New France, with little
interruption, till his death in 1635.
On the 13th of April, 1608, he left Honfleur, and arrived at Tadoussac
on the 3d of June. Here he found Pont Gravé, who had preceded him, in
serious trouble. A Basque fur-trader and whale-fisherman, who did not
choose to be restrained in his trade, had attacked him, killed one of
his men, severely wounded Pont Gravé himself, and taken possession
of his armament. The illegal character of this proceeding and its
utter disregard of the King’s commission clearly merited immediate
and severe punishment. While the Governor was greatly annoyed, he
did not, however, allow passion to warp his judgment or overcome the
dictates of reason. The punishment, so richly deserved, could not be
administered without the sacrifice of all his plans for the present
year. With a characteristic prudence he therefore decided, “in order
not to make a bad cause out of a just one,” to use his own expression,
upon a compromise, by referring the final settlement to the authorities
in France, with the assurance, in the mean time, that there should be
no further interference by either party with the other.
[Illustration: TADOUSSAC.
Champlain’s plan in the edition of 1613. Key: _A_, Round Mountain. _B_,
harbor. _C_, fresh-water brook. _D_, camp of natives coming to traffic.
_E_, peninsula. _F_, Point of all Devils. _G_, Saguenay River. _H_,
Point aux Alouettes. _I_, very rough mountain covered with firs and
beeches. _L_, the mill Bode. _M_, roadstead. _N_, pond. _O_, brook.
_P_, grass-land.]
Having constructed a small barque of about fourteen tons, and taken
on board a complement of men and such material as was needed for his
settlement, he proceeded up the River St. Lawrence. On the fourth
day the French approached the lofty headland jutting out upon the
river and forcing it into a narrow channel, to which, on account of
this narrowing, the Algonquins had given the significant name of
Quebec.[379] Here on a belt of land at the base of a lofty precipice,
along the water’s edge, on the 3d day of July, 1608, Champlain laid the
foundations of the city which still bears the name of Quebec.
[Illustration: QUEBEC, 1613.
[A fac-simile of Champlain’s plan in the edition of 1613. Key: _A_, Our
habitation, now the Point; _B_, cleared ground for grain, later, the
Esplanade, or Grande Place; _C_, gardens; _D_, small brook; _E_, river
where Cartier wintered, called by him St. Croix, now the St. Charles;
_F_, river of the marshes; _G_, grass-land; _H_, Montmorency Falls,
twenty-five fathoms high (really forty fathoms high); _I_, end of Falls
of Montmorency, now Lake of the Snows; _R_, Bear Brook, now La Rivière
de Beauport; _S_, Brook du Gendre, now Rivière des Fons; _T_, meadows
overflowed; _V_, Mont du Gas, very high, now the bastion Roi à la
Citadelle; _X_, swift mill-brooks; _Y_, gravelly shore, where diamonds
are found; _Z_, Point of Diamonds; _9_, sites of Isle d’Orléans; _L_,
very narrow point, afterward known as Cap de Lévis; _M_, Roaring
River, which extends to the Etechemins; _N_, St. Lawrence River; _O_,
lake in the Roaring River; _P_, mountains and “bay which I named New
Biscay;” _Q_, lake of the natives’ cabins. Cf. Slafter’s edition, ii.
175. This map is often wanting in copies of this edition; cf. _Menzies
Catalogue_, no. 368. There is another fac-simile of it in the _Voyages
de Découverte au Canada_, published by the Literary and Historical
Society of Quebec in 1843.—ED.]]
The remaining part of the season was employed in establishing his
colony, in felling the forest trees, in excavating cellars, erecting
buildings, in laying out and preparing gardens, and in the necessary
preparations for the coming winter. Among the events to occupy the
attention of the Governor early after their arrival was the suppression
of a conspiracy among his men which aimed at his assassination, the
seizure of the property of the settlement, and the conversion of it
to their own use. Proceeding cautiously in eliciting all the facts,
Champlain got the approbation of the officers of the vessels and
others, and condemned four of the men to be hanged. The sentence was
executed upon the leader at once, while the other three were sent
back to France for a review and confirmation of their sentence in the
courts. This prompt exercise of authority had a salutary effect, and
good order was permanently established. The winter was severe and
trying, especially to the constitutions of men unaccustomed to the
intense cold of that region, and disease setting in, twenty of the
twenty-eight which comprised their whole number died before the middle
of April. The suffering of the sick, the mortality which followed,
the starving savages who dragged their famishing and feeble bodies
about the settlement, and whose wants could be but partially supplied,
produced a depression and gloom which can hardly be adequately pictured.
Early in June, 1609, Pont Gravé returned from France with supplies
and men for the settlement. The colony, even thus augmented, was
small; and under the system on which it was established and was to
be maintained, there was little assurance that it would be greatly
enlarged. During the first twenty-five years its whole number did not
probably at any time much exceed one hundred persons. While there was a
constant struggle to enlarge its borders and increase its numbers, it
was in fact only a respectable trading-post, maintained at a limited
expense for the economical and successful conduct of the fur-trade.
The responsibility of the Lieutenant-Governor was mostly confined
to maintaining order in this little community, and in giving the
men occupation in the gardens and small fields which were put under
cultivation, and in packing and shipping peltry during the season of
trade. For a man of the character, capacity, and practical sense of
Champlain, this was a mere bagatelle. He naturally and properly looked
forward to the time when New France should become a strong and populous
nation. Its territorial extent was at present unknown. The channel only
of the St. Lawrence, including the narrow margin that could be seen
from the prow of the barque as it sailed along its shore from Tadoussac
to the Lachine Rapids, had been explored. A vast continent stretched
away in the distance, shrouded in dark forests, diversified with deep
rivers and broad lakes, concerning which nothing whatever was known,
except that which might be gathered from the shadowy representations
of the wild men roaming in its solitudes. To know the capabilities of
this mysterious, unmeasured domain; to learn the history, character,
and relations of the differing tribes by whom it was inhabited,—was
the day-dream of Champlain’s vigorous and active mind. But to attain
this was not an easy task. It required patience, discretion, endurance
of hardship and danger, a brave spirit, and an indomitable will. With
these qualities Champlain was richly endowed, and from his natural love
of useful adventure, and his experience in exploration, he was at all
times ready and eager to push his investigations into these new regions
and among these pre-historic tribes.
[Illustration: THE ST. LAWRENCE, 1609.
[From Lescarbot’s map, showing Quebec (Kebec) and Tadoussac at the
mouth of the Saguenay.—ED.]]
During the winter Champlain had learned from the Indians who came to
the settlement that far to the southwest there existed a large lake,
whose waters were dotted with beautiful islands, and whose shores were
surrounded by lofty mountains and fertile valleys. An opportunity to
explore this lake and the river by which its waters were drained into
the St. Lawrence was eagerly coveted by Champlain. This region occupied
a peculiar relation to the hostile tribes on the north and those on
the south of the St. Lawrence. It was the battle-field, or war-path,
where they had for many generations, on each returning summer, met
in bloody conflict. The territory between these contending tribes
was neutral ground. Mutual fear had kept it open and uninhabited.
The Montagnais in the neighborhood of Quebec were quite ready to
conduct Champlain on this exploration, but it was nevertheless on the
condition that he should assist them in an attack upon these enemies if
encountered on the lake. To this he acceded without hesitation. It is
possible that he did not appreciate the consequences of assuming such
a hostile attitude toward the Iroquois; but it is probable that he was
influenced by a broad national policy, to which we shall revert in the
sequel.
[Illustration: VIEW OF QUEBEC.
[Champlain’s, in his edition of 1613. Key: _A_, storehouse; _B_,
dovecote; _C_, armory and workmen’s lodging; _D_, workmen’s lodging;
_E_, dial; _F_, blacksmith shop and mechanics’ lodging; _G_, galleries
all about the dwellings; _H_, Champlain’s house; _I_, gate and
drawbridge; _L_, promenade, ten feet wide; _M_, moat; _N_, platform for
cannon; _O_, Champlain’s garden; _P_, kitchen; _Q_, open space; _R_,
St. Lawrence River. This print is also reproduced in Lemoine’s _Quebec
Past and Present_, Quebec, 1876, and in _Voyages de Découverte au
Canada_, published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in
1843.—ED.]]
On the 18th day of June Champlain left Quebec for this exploration. His
escort of Montagnais was subsequently augmented by delegations from
their allies, the Hurons and the Algonquins.
[Illustration: Champlain
[This follows the Hamel painting after the Moncornet portrait, as
given in Dr. Shea’s _Charlevoix_, vol. ii., and _Le Clercq_, i. 65.
Cf. Slafter’s _Champlain_, vol. i., for a statement regarding the
portraits of Champlain. Mr. Slafter prefers a woodcut by Roujat, and
thinks that Hamel worked upon a sketch made from the Moncornet picture,
which failed to preserve the strength of the original. The autograph
of Champlain is rare. Dufossé in 1883 advertised a manuscript contract
signed by him and his wife for 190 francs.—ED.]]
After numerous delays and adjustments and readjustments of plans, when
the expedition was fairly afloat on the River Richelieu it consisted of
sixty warriors in bark canoes, clad in their usual armor, accompanied
by Champlain and two French arquebusiers. Proceeding up the river,
they entered the lake, coursed its western shore, and moved tardily
along. At the expiration of nearly three weeks,—on the 29th of July,
1609,—in the shade of the evening, they discovered a flotilla of bark
canoes containing about two hundred Iroquois warriors of the Mohawk
tribe, who were searching for their enemies, the tribes of the north,
whom they hoped to find on this old war-path. Early the next morning,
on the present site of Ticonderoga, near where the French subsequently
erected Fort Carillon, whose ruins are still visible, the two parties
met.[380]
[Illustration: DEFEAT OF IROQUOIS AT LAKE CHAMPLAIN.
[A fac-simile of Champlain’s engraving in his edition of 1613. Key: _A_
(wanting), the fort; _B_, enemy; _C_, oak-bark canoes of the enemy,
holding ten, fifteen, or eighteen men each; _D_, two chiefs, who were
killed; _E_, an enemy wounded by Champlain’s musket; _F_ (wanting),
Champlain; _G_ (wanting), two musketeers; _H_, canoes of the allies,
Montagnais, Ochastaiguins, and Algonquins, who are above; _I_ (also on
the), birch-bark canoes of our allies; _K_ (wanting), woods.—ED.]]
It was the first exhibition of firearms which the savages had ever
witnessed. Champlain, moving at the head of his allies, discharged
his arquebus, and by it two chiefs were instantly killed, and another
savage fell mortally wounded. The two French arquebusiers, attacking
in flank, poured also a deadly fire upon the astonished Mohawks. The
strange noise of the musketry, their comrades falling dead or wounded,
and the deafening shout of the victors, carried dismay into the Mohawk
ranks. In utter consternation they fled into the forest, abandoning
their canoes, arms, provisions, and implements of every sort. The joy
of the victors was unbounded. In three hours after the fight they had
gathered up their booty, placed the ten captives whom they had taken
in their canoes, performed the customary dance of victory, and were
sailing down the lake on their homeward voyage. They soon reached
their destination, having lingered here and there to inflict the usual
inhuman punishments upon their poor prisoners of war. The cruelties
which they practised in the presence of Champlain were abhorrent to
his generous nature, and he used his utmost influence to mitigate and
soften the sufferings which he could not wholly avert.
The exploration which Champlain had thus conducted was interesting and
geographically important. He had made a hurried survey of the lake
extending nearly its whole length, and had observed its beautiful
islands, with its wooded shores flanked by the Adirondacks on the
west and by the Green Mountains on the east. From the mouth of the
Richelieu he had penetrated inland a hundred and fifty miles, and as
the discoverer he might justly claim that the whole domain, of which
this line was the radius, had by him been added to French dominion. To
this exquisitely fine expanse of water he gave his own name; and now,
after the lapse of two hundred and seventy-five years, it still bears
the appellation of Lake Champlain.
Soon after arriving at Quebec, Champlain made preparations to return
to France. Leaving the settlement in charge of a deputy, he arrived at
Honfleur on the 13th of October. He immediately laid before De Monts
and the King a full report of his discoveries and observations during
the past year, and to both of them it was gratifying and satisfactory.
The monopoly of the fur-trade which had been granted to De Monts
had expired by limitation, and he now sought for its renewal. The
opposition, however, was too powerful, and his efforts were fruitless.
Nevertheless, De Monts did not abandon his undertaking, but with a
commendable resolution and courage he renewed his contracts with the
merchants of Rouen, and in the spring of 1610 sent out two vessels to
transport artisans and supplies for the settlement, and to carry on the
fur-trade. Champlain was again appointed lieutenant for the government
of the colony at Quebec.
During this summer he was unable to undertake any explorations,
although two important ones had been projected the year before. One of
them was in the direction of Lake St. John and the headwaters of the
Saguenay, the other up the Ottawa and to the region of Lake Superior.
The importance of an early survey of these distant regions was obvious;
but the Indians were not ready for the undertaking, and without
their friendly guidance and assistance it was plainly impracticable.
Early in the season the Montagnais were on their way to the mouth of
the Richelieu, where they were to meet their allies, the Hurons and
Algonquins, and proceed up the river to Lake Champlain, and engage in
their usual summer’s entertainment of war with the Mohawks. Sending
forward several barques for trading purposes, Champlain repaired
to the rendezvous, where he learned that the Iroquois or Mohawks,
nothing daunted by the experiences of the previous year, had already
arrived, and had thrown up a hasty intrenchment on the shore, and
were impatiently awaiting the fight. There was no delay; the conflict
was terrific. By the aid and advice of Champlain the rude fort was
demolished. Fifteen of the Mohawks were taken prisoners, others plunged
into the river and were drowned, and the rest perished by the arquebus
and the savage implements of war. Not one of the Mohawks escaped to
tell the story of their disaster.
Before the Algonquins from the Ottawa returned to their homes,
Champlain began a practice which proved of great value in after years.
He placed in the custody of the Indians a young man to accompany them
to their homes, pass the winter, learn their language, their mode
of life, and the numberless other things which can only be fully
understood and appreciated by an actual residence. On the other hand,
a young savage was taken to France and made familiar with the forms of
civilized life. These delegates of both parties became interpreters,
and thus intercourse between the French and Indians became easy and
intelligent.
During the summer information was received of the assassination of
Henry IV. This was regarded as a great calamity. He had from the first
been friendly to those engaged in colonial enterprise, and they could
fully rely upon his sympathy, although his impoverished treasury did
not permit him to give that substantial aid which was really needed.
Champlain returned to France in the autumn of 1610, but again visited
Quebec in 1611, though only for the summer, which was devoted almost
exclusively to the management of the fur-trade. This trade was at
best limited and desultory. The French did not obtain their peltry
by trapping, snaring, or the chase, but by traffic with the savage
tribes, who every summer visited the St. Lawrence for this purpose.
A small number of them appeared each spring at Tadoussac, and a much
larger number at Montreal, with their bark canoes loaded with skins
of the beaver and of other valuable fur-bearing animals. Having no
use for money or for such fabrics as are useful and necessary in
civilized life, the savages gladly exchanged the accumulations of
the winter, sometimes not reserving enough for their own clothing,
for such glittering trifles as were offered to their choice. To
facilitate these exchanges a rendezvous was established at Montreal,
and when the flotilla of canoes appeared in the river, the trade was
completed in an incredibly short time. As it was absolutely free and
unrestricted, the competition became excessive, and the balance-sheet
of the merchants usually presented an exceedingly small net profit,
if not a considerable loss. This competition was so disastrous, that
the associates of De Monts decided to withdraw from the enterprise,
and sold to him their interest in the establishment at Quebec. The
formation of a new company was forthwith committed to Champlain. He
accordingly drew up a scheme, embracing, besides others, these two
important features: First, that the association should be presided
over by a viceroy of high position and commanding influence; this was
supposed to be important in settling any complications that might arise
in France. Second, that membership should be open to all merchants who
might desire to engage in trade in New France, sharing equally all
profits and losses. This was supposed to remove all objections to the
association as a monopoly, since membership was free to all. The Count
de Soissons was appointed viceroy. He died, however, a few weeks later,
in the autumn of 1612, and the Prince de Condé, Henry de Bourbon II.,
was chosen his successor. The organization of the Company, under many
embarrassments, notwithstanding the precautions which had been taken by
Champlain, occupied him during the whole of the year 1612. Having been
appointed lieutenant, he returned to New France in 1613, arriving at
Quebec on the 7th of May of that year.
It had been from the beginning an ulterior object of the French in
making a settlement in North America to discover a northwest passage
by water to the Pacific Ocean. Whoever should make this discovery
would, by diminishing the distance to the markets of the East Indies,
confer a boon of untold commercial value upon his country, and earn for
himself an imperishable fame. This day-dream of all the old navigators
had haunted the mind of Champlain from the first. Every indication
which pointed in that direction was carefully considered. Nicholas
de Vignau, one of the interpreters who had passed a winter with the
Algonquins on the upper waters of the Ottawa, returned to France in
1613. Having heard doubtless something of the disastrous voyage of
Henry Hudson to the bay which bears his name, he manufactured a fine
story, all of which was spun from his own brain, but was nevertheless
well adapted to make a strong impression on the mind of Champlain and
others interested in this question. This bold impostor stated that
while with the Algonquins he had made an excursion to the north, and
had discovered a sea of salt water; that he had seen on its shores the
wreck of an English ship from which eighty men had been taken and slain
by the savages, and that the Indians had retained an English boy to
present to Champlain when he should visit them. Although the story was
plausible, Vignau was cross-examined, and put to various tests, and
finally made to certify to the truth of his statement before notaries
at La Rochelle. Champlain laid the statement before the Chancellor de
Sillery, the President Jeannin, and the Marshal de Brissac, and by them
was strongly advised to ascertain the truth of the story by a personal
exploration. He therefore resolved to make this a prominent feature of
the summer’s work.
Accordingly, with two bark canoes, provisions and arms, an Indian guide
and four Frenchmen, including De Vignau, Champlain proceeded up the
Ottawa. This river is distinguished by its numerous rapids and falls,
many of them impassable even by the light canoe;[381] and at that time
the shores were lined with dense and tangled forests, which could only
be penetrated with the utmost difficulty. After incredible fatigue and
hunger, the party at length arrived at Alumet Island, where they were
kindly received by the chief of the Indian settlement. Here De Vignau
had passed a previous winter, and was now obliged to confess his base
and shameless falsehood. The indignation of Champlain, as well as his
disappointment, can well be comprehended. He bore himself, however,
with calmness, and restrained the savages from taking the life of De
Vignau, which they were anxious to do for his audacious mendacity.
Although Champlain did not attain the object for which the journey
was undertaken, he had nevertheless explored an important river for
more than two hundred miles, and had made a favorable impression upon
the savages. On his return he was accompanied by a large number of
them, with eighty canoes loaded with valuable peltry for exchanges at
the rendezvous near Montreal. Having placed everything in order at
Quebec, he returned to France, where he remained during the whole of
the year 1614, occupied largely in adding new members to his company
of associates, and in perfecting such plans as were necessary for the
success of the colony. Among the rest he secured several missionaries
to accompany him to New France, with the purpose of converting the
Indians to the Christian faith. These were Denis Jamay, Jean d’Olbeau,
Joseph le Caron, and the lay brother Pacifique du Plessis, Recollects
of the Franciscan order.
On his return in 1615, Champlain immediately erected a chapel at
Quebec, which was placed in charge of Denis Jamay and Pacifique du
Plessis, while Jean d’Olbeau assumed the mission of the Montagnais,
and Joseph le Caron that of the Hurons. Hastening to the rendezvous
for trade at Montreal, Champlain found the allied tribes awaiting him,
and anxious to engage him in a grand campaign against the Iroquois. It
was to be on a much more comprehensive scale than anything that had
preceded it, and was to be an attack on a large fort situated in the
heart of the present State of New York. This was distant not less than
eight hundred or a thousand miles by the circuitous journey which it
was necessary to make in reaching it. The warriors were to be collected
and marshalled from the various tribes whose homes were along the
route. The undertaking was not a small one. A journey, including the
return, of fifteen hundred or two thousand miles, by river and lake,
through swamps and tangled forests, with the incumbrance of necessary
baggage and a motley crowd of several hundred savages to be daily fed
by the chance of fishing and hunting, demanded a brave heart and a
strong will.
[Illustration: CHAMPLAIN’S ROUTE, 1615.
[This sketch-map follows one given by Mr. O. H. Marshall in connection
with a paper on “Champlain’s Expedition of 1615” in the _Mag. of Amer.
Hist._, August, 1878. It shows the route believed by Mr. Marshall to be
that of Champlain from Quinté Bay, and the route suggested by General
John S. Clark, which is in the main accepted by Dr. Shea.
The route of Champlain and the site of the fort attacked by him has
occasioned a diversity of views. Champlain’s own narrative, besides
making part of the English translation of his works, is also translated
in the _Doc. Hist. of New York_, vol. iii., and in the _Mag. of Amer.
Hist._, September, 1877, p. 561. Fac-similes of the print of the fort,
besides being in the works, are also in the _Doc. Hist. of New York_,
iii. 9; Shea’s _Le Clercq_, i. 104; _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, September,
1877; Watson’s _History of Essex County, N. Y._, p. 22.
Mr. Marshall began the discussion of these questions as early as 1849
in the _New York Hist. Soc. Proc._ for March of the same year, p. 96;
but gave the riper results of his study in the _Mag. of Amer. Hist._,
vol. i., January, 1877, with a fac-simile of Champlain’s 1632 map. His
views here were controverted in the same, September, 1877, by George
Geddes, who placed the fort on Onondaga Creek, and by Dr. J. G. Shea
in the _Pennsylvania Magazine of History_, ii. 103, who substantially
agreed with an address by General J. S. Clark, which has not yet been
printed, but whose views are shared by Mr. L. W. Ledyard, who in an
address, Jan. 9, 1883, at Cazenovia, N. Y., tells the story of his own
and General Clark’s investigation of the site of the fort, and places
it near Perryville, N. Y. Dr. Shea, in his _Le Clercq_, i. 100, has
since gone over the authorities. It was in reply to Geddes, Shea, and
Clark that Mr. Marshall wrote the paper from which the above sketch-map
is taken. Dr. O’Callaghan, in his _Documentary History of New York_,
iii. 16, had advanced the theory that the fort was on Lake Canandaigua:
and to this view Mr. Parkman guardedly assented in his _Pioneers_, and
so marked the fort on his map. Brodhead, _History of New York_, i. 69,
and Clark in his _History of Onondaga_, placed it on Onondaga Lake. Cf.
the _Transactions_ of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec,
New Series, part ii., and the notes in the Quebec and Prince Society
editions of _Champlain’s Voyages_.—ED.]]
But it offered an opportunity for exploring unknown regions which
Champlain could not bring himself to decline. Accordingly, on the
9th of July, 1615, Champlain embarked with an interpreter, a French
servant, and ten savages, in two birch-bark canoes. They ascended
the Ottawa, entered the Mattawan, and by other waters reached Lake
Nipissing. Crossing this lake and following the channel of French
River, they entered Lake Huron, or the Georgian Bay, and coasted along
until they reached the present county of Simcoe. Here they found the
missionary Le Caron, who had preceded them. Eight Frenchmen belonging
to his company joined that of Champlain. The mustering hosts of the
savage warriors came in from every direction. At length, crossing Lake
Simcoe, by rivers and lakes and frequent portages they reached Lake
Ontario just as it merges into the River St. Lawrence, and passing
over to the New York side, they concealed their canoes in a thicket
near the shore, and proceeded by land; striking inland, crossing the
stream now known as Oneida River, they finally, on the 10th of October,
reached the great Iroquois fortress, situated a few miles south of
the eastern end of Oneida Lake. This fort was hexagonal in form,
constructed of four rows of palisades thirty feet in height, with a
gallery near the top, and water-spouts for the extinguishing of fire.
It inclosed several acres, and was a strong work of its kind. The
attack of the allies was fierce and desultory, without plan or system,
notwithstanding Champlain’s efforts to direct it. A considerable number
of the Iroquois were killed by the French firearms, and many were
wounded; but no effective impression was made upon the fortress. After
lingering before the fort some days, the allies began their retreat.
Champlain, having been wounded, was transported in a basket made for
the purpose. Returning to the other side of Lake Ontario, to a famous
hunting-ground,—probably north of the present town of Kingston,—they
remained several weeks, capturing a large number of deer. When the
frosts of December had sealed up the ground, the streams, and lakes,
they returned to the home of the Hurons in Simcoe, dragging with
incredible labor their stores of venison through bog and fen and
pathless forest. Here Champlain passed the winter, making excursions
to neighboring Indian tribes, and studying their habits and character
from his personal observation, and writing out the results with great
minuteness and detail. As soon as the season was sufficiently advanced,
Champlain began his journey homeward by the circuitous route of his
advance, and arrived safely after an absence of nearly a year. Having
put in execution plans for the repair and enlargement of the buildings
at Quebec, he returned to France.
For several years the trade in furs was conducted as usual, with
occasional changes both in the Company in France and in local
management. These, however, were of no very essential importance, and
the details must be passed by in this brief narrative. The ceaseless
struggle for large dividends and small expenditures on the part of the
company of merchants did not permit any considerable enlargement of the
colony, or any improvements which did not promise immediate returns.
Repairs upon the buildings and a new fort constructed on the brow
of the precipice in the rear of the settlement were carried forward
tardily and grudgingly.[382] As a mere trading-post it had undoubtedly
been successful. The average number of beaver skins annually purchased
of the Indians and transported to France was probably not far from
fifteen or twenty thousand, and it sometimes reached twenty-two
thousand. The annual dividend of forty per cent on the investment,
as intimated by Champlain, must have been highly satisfactory to the
Company. The settlement maintained the character of a trading-post,
but hardly that of a colonial plantation. After the lapse of nearly
twenty years, the average number of colonists did not exceed much
more than fifty. This progress was not satisfactory to Champlain,
to the Viceroy, or to the Council of State. In 1627 a change became
inevitable. Cardinal de Richelieu had become grand master and chief
of the navigation and commerce of France. He saw the importance of
rendering this colony worthy of the fame and greatness of the nation
under whose authority it had been planted. Acting with characteristic
promptness and decision, he dissolved the old Company and instituted a
new one, denominated _La Compagnie de la Nouvelle France_, consisting
of a hundred or more members, and commonly known as the Company of
the Hundred Associates. The constitution of this society possessed
several important features, which seemed to assure the solid growth of
the colony. Richelieu was its constituted head. Its authority was to
extend over the whole territory of New France and Florida. Its capital
was three hundred thousand livres. It proposed to send to Canada in
1628 from two hundred to three hundred artisans of all classes, and
within the space of fifteen years to transport four thousand colonists
to New France. These were to be wholly supported by the Company for
three years, and after that they were to have assigned to them as much
land as was needed for cultivation. The settlers were to be natives of
France and exclusively of the Catholic faith, and no Huguenot was to be
allowed to enter the country. The Company was to have exclusive control
of trade, and all goods manufactured in New France were to be free
of imposts on exportation. Such were the more general and prominent
features of the association. In the spring of 1628 the Company, thus
organized, despatched four armed vessels to convoy a fleet of eighteen
transports, laden with emigrants and stores, together with one hundred
and thirty-five pieces of ordnance to fortify the settlement at Quebec.
War existing at that time between England and France, an English
fleet was already on its way to destroy the French colony at Quebec.
The transports and convoy sent out by the Company of the Hundred
Associates were intercepted on their way, carried into England, and
confiscated. On the arrival of the English at Tadoussac, David Kirke,
the commander, sent up a summons to Champlain at Quebec, demanding
the surrender of the town; this Champlain declined to do with such
an air of assurance that the English commander did not attempt to
enforce his demand. The supplies for the settlement having thus been
cut off by the English, before the next spring the colony was on the
point of perishing by starvation. Half of them had been billeted on
Indian tribes to escape impending death. On the 19th of July, 1629,
three English vessels appeared before Quebec, and again demanded its
surrender. Destitute of provisions and of all means of defence, with
only a handful of famishing men, Champlain delivered up the post
without hesitation. All the movable property belonging to the Company
at Quebec was surrendered. The whole colony, with the exception of such
as preferred to remain, were transported to France by way of England.
On their arrival at Plymouth, it was ascertained that the war between
the two countries had come to an end, and that the articles of peace
provided that all conquests made subsequent to the 24th of April,
1629, were to be restored; and consequently Quebec, and the peltry and
other property taken after that date, must be remanded to their former
owners. Notwithstanding this, Champlain was taken to London and held as
a prisoner of war for several weeks, during which time the base attempt
was made to compel him to pay a ransom for his freedom. Such illegal
and unjust artifices practised upon a man like Champlain of course came
to nothing, except to place upon the pages of history a fresh example
of what the avarice of men will lead them to do. After having been
detained a month, Champlain was permitted to depart for France.
[Illustration: CAPTURE OF QUEBEC, 1629.
Fac-simile of the engraving in Hennepin’s _New Discovery_, 1698, p.
161. Of this capture (during which not a gun was fired, notwithstanding
Hennepin’s dramatic picture) see an enumeration of contemporary
authorities in the notes to Shea’s _Charlevoix_, ii. 44, _et seq._,
principally Champlain, Sagard, and Creuxius. It is the subject of
special treatment in H. Kirke’s _Conquest of Canada_, with help from
papers in the English Record Office. In the same year (1629) there was
a seizure on the part of the French of James Stuart’s post at Cape
Breton, commemorated in _La Prise d’un Seigneur Écossois, etc._ Par
Monsieur Daniel de Dieppe. Rouen, 1630. Cf. Champlain, 1632 ed., p.
272; and Harrisse, no. 45.]
The breaking-up of the settlement at Quebec just on the eve of the new
arrangement under the administration of the Hundred Associates, and
with greater prospect of success than had existed at any former period,
involved a loss which can hardly be estimated, and retarded for several
years the progress of the colony. The return of the property which
had been illegally seized and carried away gave infinite trouble and
anxiety to Champlain; and it was not until 1633 that he left France
again, with a large number of colonists, re-commissioned as governor,
to join his little colony at Quebec.[383] He was accompanied by the
Jesuit Fathers Enemond Massé and Jean de Brébeuf. The Governor and
his associates received at Quebec from the remnant of the colony a
most hearty welcome. The memory of what good he had done in the past
awakened in them fresh gratitude and a new zeal in his service. He
addressed himself with his old energy, but nevertheless with declining
strength, to the duties of the hour,—to the renovation and improvement
of the habitation and fort, to the holding of numerous councils with
the Indians in the neighborhood, and to the execution of plans for
winning back the traffic of allied tribes. The building of a chapel,
named, in memory of the recovery of Quebec, Notre Dame de Recouvrance,
and such other kindred duties as sprang out of the responsibilities of
his charge, engaged his attention. In these occupations two years soon
passed.
During the summer of 1635 Champlain addressed a letter to Cardinal de
Richelieu, soliciting the means, and setting forth the importance of
subduing the hostile tribes known as the Five Nations, and bringing
them into sympathy and friendship with the French.[384] This in
his opinion was necessary for the proper enlargement of the French
domain and for the opening of the whole continent to the influence of
the Christian faith,—two objects which seemed to him of paramount
importance. This was probably the last letter written by Champlain,
and contains the key to the motives which had influenced him from
the beginning in joining the northern tribes in their wars with the
Iroquois.[385] On Christmas Day, the 25th of December, 1635, Champlain
died in the little fort which he had erected on the rocky promontory
at Quebec, amid the tears and sorrows of the colony to which for
twenty-seven years he had devoted his strength and thought with rare
generosity and devotion.[386] In the following June, Montmagny, a
Knight of Malta, arrived as the successor of Champlain.
[Illustration]
CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.
THE richest source of information relating to Champlain’s achievements
as a navigator, explorer, and the founder of the French settlement in
Canada is found in his own writings. It was his habit to keep a journal
of his observations, which he began even on his voyage to the West
Indies in 1599. Of his first voyage to Canada, in 1603, his Journal
appears to have been put to press in the last part of the same year.
This little book of eighty pages is entitled: _Des Savvages; ov, Voyage
de Samvel Champlain, de Brovage, faict en la France Nouuelle, l’an
mil six cens trois. A Paris, chez Clavde de Monstr’oeil, tenant sa
boutique en la Cour du Palais, au nom de Jesus, 1604. Auec priuilege
du Roy._ This Journal contains a valuable narrative of the incidents
of the voyage across the Atlantic, and likewise a description of the
Gulf and River St. Lawrence, and enters fully into details touching
the tributaries of the great river, the bays, harbors, forests, and
scenery along the shore, as well as the animals and birds with which
the islands and borders of the river were swarming at that period. It
contains a discriminating account of the character and habits of the
savages as he saw them.[387]
In 1613 Champlain published a second volume, embracing the events which
had occurred from 1603 to that date. The following is its title: _Les
Voyages dv Sievr de Champlain Xaintongeois, Capitaine ordinaire pour
le Roy, en la marine, divisez en devx livres; ou, jovrnal tres-fidele
des observations faites és descouuertures de la Nouuelle France:
tant en la descriptiô des terres, costes, riuieres, ports, haures,
leurs hauteurs, et plusieurs delinaisons de la guide-aymant; qu’en la
creâce des peuples, leur superstition, façon de viure et de guerroyer:
enrichi de quantité de figures. A Paris, chez Jean Berjon, rue S.
Jean de Beauuais, au Cheual volant, et en sa boutique au Palais,
à la gallerie des prisonniers, M.DC.XIII. Avec privilege dv Roy_.
4to.[388] It contains a full description of the coast-line westerly
from Canseau, including Nova Scotia, the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick,
and New England as far as the Vineyard Sound. It deals not only with
the natural history, the fauna and flora, but with the character
of the soil, its numerous products, as well as the sinuosities and
conformation of the shore, and is unusually minute in details touching
the natives. In this last respect it is especially valuable, as at
that period neither their manners, customs, nor mode of life had been
modified by intercourse with Europeans. The volume is illustrated by
twenty-two local maps and drawings, and a large map representing the
territory which he had personally surveyed, and concerning which he
had obtained information from the natives and from other sources.
This is the first map to delineate the coast-line of New England with
approximate correctness. The volume contains likewise what he calls
a “geographical map,” constructed with the degrees of latitude and
longitude numerically indicated. In this respect it is, of course,
inexact, as the instruments then in use were very imperfect, and it is
doubtful whether his surveys had been sufficiently extensive to furnish
the proper and adequate data for these complicated calculations. It was
the first attempt to lay down the latitude and longitude on any map of
the coast.[389]
In 1619 Champlain published a third work, describing the events
from 1615 to that date. It was reissued in 1620 and in 1627. The
following is its title, as given in the issue of 1627:[390] _Voyages
et Descovvertvres faites en la Novvelle France, depuis l’année 1615
iusques à la fin de l’année 1618. Par le Sieur de Champlain, Cappitaine
ordinaire pour le Roy en la Mer du Ponant. Seconde Edition. A Paris,
chez Clavde Collet, au Palais, en la gallerie des Prisonniers, M.D.C.
XXVII. Avec privilege dv Roy._ The previous issue contained the
occurrences of 1613. The year 1614 he passed in France. The present
volume continues his observations in New France from his return in
1615. It describes his introduction of the Recollect Fathers as
missionaries to the Indians, his exploration of the Ottawa, Lake
Nipissing, Lake Huron, and Ontario; the attack on the Iroquois fort in
the State of New York; his winter among the Hurons; and it contains his
incomparable essay on the Hurons and other neighboring tribes. It has
Brûlé’s narrative of his experiences among the savages on the southern
borders of the State of New York, near the Pennsylvania line, and that
of the events which occurred in the settlement at Quebec; it contains
illustrations of the dress of the savages in their wars and feasts, of
their monuments for the dead, their funeral processions, of the famous
fort of the Iroquois in the State of New York, and of the deer-trap.
In 1632 Champlain published his last work, under the following title:
_Les Voyages de la Novvelle France occidentale, dicte Canada, faits
par le S^r de Champlain Xainctongeois, Capitaine pour le Roy en la
Marine du Ponant, et toutes les Descouuertes qu’il a faites en ce
pais depuis l’an 1603 iusques en l’an 1629. Où se voit comme ce pays
a esté premierement descouuert par les François, sous l’authorité de
nos Roys tres-Chrestiens, iusques au regne de sa Majesté à present
regnante Lovis XIII. Roy de France et de Navarre. A Paris, chez Clavde
Collet, au Palais, en la Gallerie des Prisonniers, à l’ Estoille d’Or,
M.DC.XXXII. Auec Priuilege du Roy._[391] A sub-title accompanies this
and the other works, which we have omitted as unnecessary for our
present purpose. This volume is divided into two parts. The first part
is an abridgment of what had already been published up to this date,
and omits much that is valuable in the preceding publications. It
preserves the general outline and narrative, but drops many personal
details and descriptions which are of great historical importance,
and can be supplied only by reference to his earlier publications.
The second part is a continuation of his journals from 1620 to 1631
inclusive. Champlain’s personal explorations were completed in
1615-1616, and consequently this second part relates mostly to affairs
transacted at Quebec and on the River St. Lawrence. It contains an
ample and authentic account of the taking of Quebec by the English in
1629. The volume is supplemented by Champlain’s treatise on navigation,
a brief work on Christian doctrine translated into the language of the
Montagnais by Brebeuf, and the Lord’s Prayer, Apostles’ Creed, etc.,
rendered into the same language by Masse.
REPRINTS.—In 1830 the first reprint of any of Champlain’s works was
made at Paris, where the issue of 1632 was printed in two volumes.
It was done by order of the French Government, to give work to the
printers thrown out of employment by the Revolution of July, and is
without note or comment.[392] In 1870 a complete edition of Champlain’s
works was issued at Quebec, under the editorial supervision of the Abbé
Laverdière, who gave a summary of Champlain’s career with luminous
annotations. It was called _Œuvres de Champlain, publiées sous le
Patronage de l’Université Laval. Par l’Abbé C. H. Laverdière, M. A.
Seconde Édition.[393] 6 tomes, 4to. Québec: Imprimé au Séminaire par
Geo. E. Desbarats, 1870._ This edition includes the Brief Discourse or
Voyage to the West Indies in 1599, which had never before been printed
in the original French. The manuscript had been almost miraculously
preserved, and at the time it was used by Laverdière it belonged to M.
Féret of Dieppe.[394] The edition of Laverdière is an exact reprint,
most carefully done, and entirely trustworthy, while its notes are full
and exceedingly accurate.[395]
TRANSLATIONS.—The “Savages” was printed in an English translation by
Samuel Purchas in his _Pilgrimes_, London, 1625, vol. iv. pp. 1605-1619.
In 1859 the _Brief Discourse_, or Voyage to the West Indies, translated
by Alice Wilmere and edited by Norton Shaw, was published at London by
the Hakluyt Society.
In 1878, 1880, and 1882, an English translation of the Voyages was
printed by the Prince Society, in three volumes, comprising the
Journals issued in 1604, 1613, and 1619, as _Voyages of Samuel de
Champlain, translated from the French by Charles Pomeroy Otis, Ph.D.,
with Historical Illustrations, and a Memoir by the Rev. Edmund F.
Slafter, A. M._ The Memoir occupies the greater part of vol. i., and
both the Memoir and the Voyages are heavily annotated. It contains
heliotype copies of all the local and general maps and drawings in the
early French editions,—in all thirty-one illustrations; besides a new
outline map showing the explorations and journeyings of Champlain,
together with two portraits,—one engraved by Ronjat after an old
engraving by Moncornet; the other is from a painting by Th. Hamel,
likewise after the engraving by Moncornet.[396]
The _Mercure François_, a journal of current events, contains several
narratives relating to New France during the administration of
Champlain.[397]
In vol. xiii. pp. 12-34, is a letter of Charles Lalemant, a Jesuit
missionary (Aug. 1, 1626), about the extent of the country, method of
travelling, character, manners, and customs of the natives, and the
work of the mission.[398] In vol. xiv. pp. 232-267, for 1628, is a full
narrative of the _Compagnie de la Nouvelle France_, or the Company
of the Hundred Associates, which was under the direction of Cardinal
Richelieu, setting forth its origin, design, and constitution.[399]
In vol. xviii., for 1632, pp. 56-74, there is again much about the
Indians, and the delivery in that year of Quebec to the French by the
English. In vol. xix., for 1633, pp. 771-867, are further accounts of
the savages, and of the return of Champlain as governor in 1633, with
the events which followed, particularly his dealings with the Indian
tribes.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
ACADIA.
BY CHARLES C. SMITH,
_Treasurer of the Massachusetts Historical Society._
ACADIA is the designation of a territory of uncertain and disputed
extent. Though its sovereignty passed more than once from France to
England, and from England to France, its limits were never exactly
defined. But in this chapter it will be used to denote that part of
America claimed by Great Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713,
as bounded on the south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by a line
drawn due north from the mouth of the Penobscot River, on the north by
the River St. Lawrence, and on the east by the Gulf of St. Lawrence and
the Strait of Canso. Within these bounds were minor divisions vaguely
designated by French or Indian names; and the larger part of this
region was also called by the English Nova Scotia, or New Scotland.
[Illustration: SIEUR DE MONTS.
[This follows a copy of a water-color drawing in the _Massachusetts
Archives; Documents Collected in France_, i. 441, called a portrait of
De Monts from an original at Versailles. Mr. Parkman tells me that he
was misled by this reference of Mr. Poore in stating that a portrait
of De Monts existed at Versailles (_Pioneers_, p. 222); since a later
examination has not revealed such a canvas, and the picture may be
considered as displaying the costume of the gentleman of the period,
if there is doubt concerning its connection with De Monts. There is
another engraving of it in Drake’s _Nooks and Corners of the New
England Coast_.—ED.]]
So large a tract of country naturally presents great varieties of soil
and climate and of other physical characteristics; but for the most
part it is fertile, and it abounds in mineral resources, the extent and
value of which were long unsuspected even by such eager seekers for
mines as the early voyagers. It was often the theatre of sanguinary
conflicts on a small scale, and its early history, which is closely
connected with that of the New England colonies, includes more than
one episode of tragic interest. Yet it has never filled an important
place in the history of civilization in America, and it was a mere
make-weight in adjusting the balance of losses and acquisitions by the
two great European powers which for a century and a half contended here
for colonial supremacy.
Acadia seems to have been known to the French very soon after the
voyages of Cabot, and to have been visited occasionally by Breton
fishermen almost from the beginning of the sixteenth century. For
nearly a hundred years these adventurous toilers of the sea prosecuted
their dangerous calling on the Banks of Newfoundland and the near
shores before any effective attempt at colonization was made. It was
not until 1540 that a Picard gentleman, Jean François de Roberval,
was appointed viceroy of Canada, and attempted to establish a colony
within the St. Lawrence.[400]
Owing to the unexpected severity of the climate and the want of
support from France, the enterprise failed, and, with the exception
of the abortive efforts of De la Roche in 1584 and in 1598,[401] no
new attempt at French colonization was made for more than half a
century afterward, when the accession of Henry IV. gave a new impulse
to the latent spirit of adventure. In 1603 Pierre de Guast, Sieur de
Monts, was named lieutenant-general of Acadia, with powers extending
over all the inhabitable shores of America north of the latitude of
Philadelphia.[402] Vast as was this domain, his real authority was
confined to very narrow limits. Setting sail from France in the early
part of April, 1604, De Monts, accompanied by Champlain, came in sight
of Sable Island on the 1st of May, and a week later made the mainland
at Cape La Hêve.
[Illustration: ISLE DE SAINTE CROIX.
[This is a fac-simile of Champlain’s engraving in his edition of 1613.
The key is as follows: _A_, Habitation. _B_, Gardens. _C_, Isles with
cannon. _D_, Platform for cannon. _E_, Burial-place. _F_, Chapel.
_G_, Rocky shoals. _H_, Islet. _I_, De Mont’s water-mill begun here.
_L_, Place for making coal. _M_ and _N_, Gardens. _O_, Mountains
(Chamcook Hill, 627 feet high). _P_, River of the Etechemins (called
later Schoodic River, till the name St. Croix was restored). Slafter
describes the island as about 540 feet wide at the broadest part, and
it contains now six or seven acres. Five small cannon-balls, two and
one-quarter inches in diameter, were dug up at the southern end some
years ago. Slafter’s edition, ii. 33.—ED.]]
Subsequently he doubled the southwestern point of the peninsula of
Nova Scotia, and coasting along the shore of what is now known as the
Bay of Fundy, he finally determined to effect a settlement on a little
island[403] just within the mouth of the St. Croix River. Here several
small buildings were erected, and the little company of seventy-nine
in all prepared to pass the winter. Before spring nearly one half of
their number died; and in the following summer, after the arrival of a
small reinforcement, it was decided to abandon the place. The coast was
carefully explored as far south as Cape Cod, but without finding any
spot which satisfied their fastidious tastes;[404] and the settlement
was then transferred to the other side of the bay, to what is now
called Annapolis Basin, but which De Monts had designated the year
before as Port Royal. Here a portion of the company was left to pass
a second winter, while De Monts returned to France, to prevent, if
possible, the withdrawal of any part of the monopoly granted him by the
Crown.
Nearly a year elapsed before he again reached his settlement,—only to
find it reduced to two individuals. After a winter of great suffering,
Pontgravé, who had been left in command during the absence of De Monts,
weary with waiting for succor, had determined to sail for France,
leaving these two brave men to guard the buildings and other property.
He had but just sailed when Jean de Poutrincourt, the lieutenant of De
Monts, arrived with the long-expected help. Measures were immediately
taken to recall Pontgravé, if he could be found on the coast, and these
were fortunately successful. He was discovered at Cape Sable, and at
once returned; but soon afterward he sailed again for France.[405]
Another winter was passed at Port Royal, pleasantly enough according
to the accounts of Champlain and Lescarbot; but in the early summer,
orders to abandon the settlement were received from De Monts, whose
monopoly of the trade with the Indians had been rescinded. The settlers
reluctantly left their new home, and the greater part of them reached
St. Malo, in Brittany, in October, 1607. The first attempt at French
colonization in Acadia was as abortive as Popham’s English colony at
the mouth of the Sagadahock in the following year.[406]
[Illustration: BUILDINGS ON ST. CROIX ISLAND.
[This cut follows Champlain’s in the 1613 edition. It represents,—_A_,
De Monts’s house. _B_, Common building, for rainy days. _C_,
Storehouse. _D_, Building for the guard. _E_, Blacksmith’s shop. _F_,
Carpenter’s house. _G_, Well. _H_, Oven. _I_, Kitchen. _L_ and _M_,
Gardens. _N_, Open square. _O_, Palisade. _P_, Houses of D’Orville,
Champlain, and Champdoré. _Q_, Houses of Boulay and artisans. _R_,
houses of Genestou, Sourin, and artisans. _T_, Houses of Beaumont, la
Motte Bourioli, and Fougeray. _V_, Curate’s house. _X_, Gardens. _Y_,
River.—ED.]]
Three years later, Poutrincourt, to whom De Monts had granted Port
Royal, set sail from Dieppe to found a new colony on the site of
the abandoned settlement. The deserted houses were again occupied,
and a brighter future seemed to await the new enterprise. But this
expectation was doomed to a speedy disappointment.
[Illustration: PORT ROYAL, OR ANNAPOLIS BASIN (_after Lescarbot_).
After a few years of struggling existence, the English colonists
determined to expel the French as intruders on the territory belonging
to them. In 1613 an English ship, under the command of Captain Samuel
Argall, appeared off Mount Desert, where a little company of the
French, under the patronage of the Comtesse de Guercheville,[407] had
established themselves for the conversion of the Indians.
[Illustration: PORT ROYAL (_after Champlain_).
[This is Champlain’s plan (edition of 1613) a little reduced. The
letters can be thus interpreted: _A_, Our habitation. _B_, Champlain’s
garden. _C_, Road made by Poutrincourt. _D_, Island. _E_, Entrance.
_F_, Shoals, dry at low water. _G_, St. Antoine river. _H_, Wheat-field
(Annapolis). _I_, Poutrincourt’s mill. _L_, Meadows under water at
highest tides. _M_, Equille River. _N_, Coast (Bay of Fundy). _O_,
Mountains. _P_, Island. _Q_, Rocky Brook. _R_, Brook. _S_, Mill River.
_T_, Lake. _V_, Herring-fishing by the natives. _X_, Trout-brook. _Y_,
Passage made by Champlain. Harrisse (nos. 245-246) cites two plans of
Port Royal in the French Archives.—ED.]]
The French were too few to offer even a show of resistance, and the
landing of the English was not disputed. By an unworthy trick, and
without the knowledge of the French, Argall obtained possession of the
royal commission; and then, dismissing half of his prisoners to seek in
an open boat for succor from any fishing vessel of their own country
they might chance to meet, he carried the others with him to Virginia.
The same year Argall was sent back by the governor of Virginia, Sir
Thomas Dale, to finish the work of expelling the French. With three
vessels he visited successively Mount Desert and St. Croix, where he
destroyed the French buildings, and then, crossing to Port Royal,
seized whatever he could carry away, killed the cattle, and burned the
houses to the ground. Having done this, he sailed for Virginia, leaving
the colonists to support themselves as they best could. Port Royal
was not, however, abandoned by them, and it continued to drag out a
precarious existence. Seventy-five years later, its entire population
did not exceed six hundred, and in the whole peninsula there were not
more than nine hundred inhabitants.[408]
[Illustration]
Meanwhile, in 1621, Sir William Alexander, a Scotchman of some literary
pretensions, had obtained from King James a charter (dated Sept. 10,
1621) for the lordship and barony of New Scotland, comprising the
territory now known as the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
Under this grant he made several unsuccessful attempts at colonization;
and in 1625 he undertook to infuse fresh life into his enterprise by
parcelling out the territory into baronetcies.[409] Nothing came of
the scheme, and by the treaty of St. Germains, in 1632, Great Britain
surrendered to France all the places occupied by the English within
these limits. Two years before this, however, Alexander’s rights in
a part of the territory had been purchased by Claude and Charles de
la Tour;[410] and shortly after the peace, the Chevalier Razilly was
appointed by Louis XIII. governor of the whole of Acadia.[411] He
designated as his lieutenants Charles de la Tour for the portion east
of the St. Croix, and Charles de Menou, Sieur d’Aulnay-Charnisé, for
the portion west of that river.
[Illustration]
The former established himself on the River St. John where the city of
St. John now stands, and the latter at Castine, on the eastern shore
of Penobscot Bay. Shortly after his appointment, La Tour attacked and
drove away a small party of Plymouth men who had set up a trading-post
at Machias; and in 1635 D’Aulnay treated another party of the Plymouth
colonists in a similar way.[412]
[Illustration: MAP OF ABOUT 1610.
[This follows a fac-simile in the _Massachusetts Archives; Documents
Collected in France_, i. 345, where it is called “Carte pour servir à
l’intelligence du mémoire sur la Pesche de moluës, par Jean Michel,
en 1510. Copie de l’original (Dépôt des Cartes).” The date is clearly
wrong, as copied. It cannot be earlier than Champlain’s time, a hundred
years later than the date given.—ED.]]
In retaliation for this attack, Plymouth hired and despatched a vessel
commanded by one Girling, in company with their own barque, with twenty
men under Miles Standish, to dispossess the French; but the expedition
failed to accomplish anything.
[Illustration: PORT ROYAL.
[This is Champlain’s drawing in his edition of 1613. Key: _A_, House of
artisans. _B_, Platform for cannon. _C_, Storehouse. _D_, Pontgravé and
Champlain. _E_, Blacksmith. _F_, Palisade. _G_, Bakery. _H_, Kitchen.
_I_, Gardens. _K_, Burial-place. _L_, River. _M_, Moat. _N_, Dwelling,
probably of De Monts and others. _O_, Storehouse for ships’ equipments,
rebuilt and used as a dwelling by Boulay later. _P_, Gate. These
buildings were at the present Lower Granville.—ED.]]
Subsequently the two French commanders quarrelled, and, engaging
in active hostilities, made efforts (not altogether unsuccessful)
to enlist Massachusetts in their quarrel. For this purpose La Tour
visited Boston in person in the summer of 1643, and was hospitably
entertained.[413] He was not able to secure the direct co-operation of
Massachusetts, but he was permitted to hire four vessels and a pinnace
to aid him in his attack on D’Aulnay.[414] The expedition was so far
successful as to destroy a mill and some standing corn, belonging
to his rival. In the following year La Tour made a second visit to
Boston for further help; but he was able only to procure the writing
of threatening letters from the Massachusetts authorities to D’Aulnay.
Not long after La Tour’s departure from Boston, envoys from D’Aulnay
arrived here; and after considerable delay a treaty was signed pledging
the colonists to neutrality, which was ratified by the Commissioners
of the United Colonies in the following year; but it was not until
two years later that it was ratified by new envoys from the crafty
Frenchman.[415]
In this interval D’Aulnay captured by assault La Tour’s fort at St.
John, securing booty to a large amount; and a few weeks afterward
Madame la Tour, who seems to have been of a not less warlike turn than
her husband, and who had bravely defended the fort, died of shame and
mortification. La Tour was reduced to the last extremities; but he
finally made good his losses, and in 1653 he married the widow of his
rival, who had died two or three years before.[416]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: PENTAGÖET (CASTINE)
[The site of the old fort was on the shore, at a point just below the
letter _i_ in the name _Castine_ on the peninsula. Harrisse (no. 198)
cites a plan of 1670 in the French Archives.—ED.]]
In 1654, in accordance with secret instructions from Cromwell, the
whole of Acadia was subjugated by an English force from Boston under
the command of Major Robert Sedgwick, of Charlestown, and Captain John
Leverett, of Boston. To the latter the temporary government of the
country was intrusted. Ineffectual complaints of this aggression were
made to the British Government; but by the treaty of Westminster in
the following year England was left in possession, and the question of
title was referred to commissioners. In 1656 it was made a province by
Cromwell, who appointed Sir Thomas Temple governor, and granted the
whole territory to Temple and to one William Crown and Stephen de la
Tour, son of the late governor. The rights of the latter were purchased
by the other two proprietors, and Acadia remained in possession of the
English until the treaty of Breda, in 1667, when it was ceded to France
with undefined limits.[417]
Very little was done by the French to settle and improve the country;
and on the breaking out of war between France and England after the
accession of William III., it was again conquered by an expedition
fitted out at Boston under Sir William Phips. He sailed from Boston
on the 28th of April, 1690, with a frigate of forty guns, two sloops,
one of sixteen guns and the other of eight guns, and with four smaller
vessels; and after reducing St. John, Port Royal, and other French
settlements, and appointing an English governor, he returned, with
a booty sufficient, it was thought, to defray the whole cost of the
expedition.[418]
[Illustration: SIR WILLIAM PHIPS.
[This likeness is accepted, but lacks undoubted verification; cf. _Mem.
Hist. of Boston_, ii. 36.—ED.]]
This result was a signal triumph for the New England colonies, and
when Phips became, in 1692, the first royal governor of Massachusetts
under the provincial charter, Acadia was made a part of the domain
included in it. At a later day it was with no little indignation and
mortification that New England saw the conquered territory relinquished
to the French by the Treaty of Ryswick, in 1697; but the story of the
later period belongs to a subsequent volume.
[Illustration: ACADIE, 1663.
[In the _Massachusetts Archives; Documents Collected in France_, ii.
147, is a fac-simile of a map, “Tabula Novæ Franciæ,” which is thus
described by Mr. Poore: “A fac-simile of one in a manuscript atlas
purchased by M. Estancelin at a book-stall in Paris soon after the
destruction of the archbishop’s palace in 183-, the library of which
contained several boxes of manuscripts labelled _Canada_, and probably
sent from the missionaries there. The signs [church symbol] undoubtedly
were used to denote Jesuit churches or missions; the [dotted lines] the
English boundary; and the marks + the English settlements. The atlas is
dated 1663.”—ED.]]
Acadia had been the home of civilized men for nearly a hundred
years; but there was almost nothing to show as the fruits of this
long occupation of a virgin soil. It had produced no men of marked
character, and its history was little more than the record of feuds
between petty chiefs, and of feeble resistance to the attacks of more
powerful neighbors. Madame la Tour alone exhibits the courage and
energy naturally to be looked for under the circumstances in which
three generations of settlers were placed. At the end of a century
there were only a few scattered settlements spread along the coast,
passing tranquilly from allegiance to one European sovereign to
allegiance to another of different speech and religion. A few hundred
miles away, another colony founded sixteen years after the first
venture of De Monts, and with scarcely a larger number of settlers,
waged a successful war with sickness, poverty, and neglect, and made a
slow and steady progress, until, with its own consent, it was united
with a still more prosperous colony founded twenty-three years after
the first settlement at Port Royal. There are few more suggestive
contrasts than that which the history of Acadia presents when set side
by side with the history of Plymouth and Massachusetts; and what is
true of its early is not less true of its later history.
CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.
THE original authorities for the early history of the French
settlements in Acadia[419] are the contemporaneous narratives of Samuel
de Champlain and Marc Lescarbot. Though Champlain comes within our
observation as a companion of De Monts, a separate chapter in this
volume is given to his personal history and his writings.
Of the personal history of Marc Lescarbot we know much less than of
that of Champlain. He was born at Vervins, probably between 1580 and
1590, and was a lawyer in Paris, where he had an extensive practice,
and was the author of several works; only one, or rather a part of one,
concerns our present inquiry.[420]
This was an account of the settlement of De Monts in Acadia, which
was translated into English by a Protestant clergyman named Pierre
Erondelle, and which gives a very vivid picture of the life at Port
Royal.[421] He appears to have been a man of more than ordinary
ability, with not a little of the French vivacity, and altogether well
suited to be a pioneer in Western civilization. His narrative covers
only a brief period, and after the failure of the colony under De
Monts, he ceased to have any relations with Acadia. He is supposed to
have died about 1630.
The advent of the Jesuits in 1611 introduces the _Relations_ of their
order as a source of the first importance; but a detailed account of
these documents belongs to another chapter.[422] From the first of the
series, by Father Biard, and from his letters in Carayon’s _Première
Mission des Jésuites au Canada_, a collection published in Paris in
1864, and drawn from the archives of the Order at Rome, we have the
sufferers’ side of the story of Argall’s incursion; while from the
English marauder’s letters, published in Purchas, vol. iv., we get the
other side.[423]
[Illustration: PART OF LESCARBOT’S MAP, 1609.
There is a modern reproduction of Lescarbot’s entire map in Faillon,
_Colonie Française_, i. 85.]
[Illustration: ACADIE.
[This is a section of La Hontan’s map, _Carte Generale de Canada_,
which appeared in his La Haye edition, 1709, vol. ii. p. 5; and was
re-engraved in the _Mémoires_, vol. iii. Amsterdam, 1741. La Hontan
was in the country from 1683 till after 1690. The double-dotted line
indicates the southern limits of the French claim.—ED.]]
Another of these early adventurers who has left a personal account of
his long-continued but fruitless attempts at American colonization is
Nicolas Denys, a native of Tours. So early as 1632 he was appointed
by the French king governor of the territory between Cape Canso and
Cape Rosier. Forty years later, when he must have been well advanced
in life, though he had lost none of his early enthusiasm, he published
an historical and geographical description of this part of North
America.[424] The work shows that he was a careful and observant
navigator; but in its historical part it is confused and perplexing.
The second volume is largely devoted to an account of the cod-fishery,
and treats generally of the natural history of the places with which
he was familiar, and of the manners and life of the Indians. It has a
different titlepage from the first volume.
Abundant details as to the quarrels of D’Aulnay and La Tour are
in Winthrop’s _History of New England_; and many of the original
documents, most of them in contemporaneous translations, are in
the seventh volume of the third series of the _Collections_ of the
Massachusetts Historical Society. From the first of these sources
Hutchinson, in his _History of Massachusetts Bay_, drew largely, as did
Williamson in his _History of Maine_, both of whom devoted considerable
space to Acadian affairs. For some of the later transactions
Hutchinson is an original authority of unimpeachable weight.[425]
The Massachusetts writers are also naturally the sources of most of
our information regarding the expedition of 1654, though Denys and
Charlevoix touch upon it, and the modern historians of Nova Scotia
treat it in an episodical way. The articles of capitulation of Port
Royal are in _Massachusetts Archives; Documents Collected in France_,
ii. 107.
Among the later French writers the pre-eminence belongs to the
Jesuit Father, Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix, who had access
to contemporaneous materials, of which he made careful use; and his
statements have great weight, though he wrote many years after the
events he describes. His _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_ follows the
course of the French throughout the continent, and scattered through
it are many notices of the course of events in Acadia, but its more
particular characterization belongs to another chapter.
The papers drawn up by the French and English commissioners to
determine the intent of the treaty of Utrecht have a controversial
purpose, and on each side are colored and distorted to make out a case.
In them are many statements of facts which need only to be disentangled
from the arguments by which they are obscured to have a high value.
No one, indeed, can have a thorough and accurate knowledge of Acadian
history who does not make constant reference to these memorials and
to the justificatory pieces cited on the one side or the other. They
stand, when properly sifted and weighed, among the most important
sources for tracing the history of the province.[426]
The episode of Sir William Alexander and his futile schemes of
colonization is treated exhaustively by Mr. Slafter in a monograph on
_Sir William Alexander and American Colonization_, which reproduces all
the original charters and other documents bearing on his inquiry, and
apparently leaves nothing for any future gleaner in that field.[427]
But, like many other persons who have conducted similar investigations,
it must be conceded that Mr. Slafter attaches more importance to
Sir William Alexander’s somewhat visionary plans than they really
merit. They were ill adapted to promote the great object of western
colonization, and they left no permanent trace behind them.
Whipple’s brief account of Nova Scotia in his _Geographical View of the
District of Maine_ should not be overlooked; but it was written at a
time when historical students were less exacting than they now are, and
its details are meagre and unsatisfactory.[428]
Haliburton’s _History of Nova Scotia_ is a work of conscientious and
faithful labor, but in its preparation the author was under serious
disadvantages from his inability to consult many of the books on which
such a history must be based; and as he was not able to correct the
proofs, his volumes are disfigured by the grossest typographical
blunders. No one without some previous familiarity with the subject can
safely read it; but such a reader will find in it much of value.[429]
[Illustration: SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER.
[Slafter, p. 124, gives an account of the engraving by Marshall,
published in 1635, of which the above is a reproduction following
Richardson’s engraving of 1795. It represents Alexander at
fifty-seven.—ED.]]
A work of far higher authority, much fuller on the earlier periods,
and one which is generally marked by great thoroughness and accuracy,
is Murdoch’s _History of Nova Scotia_. Written in the form of
annals, it lacks every grace of style; and in a few instances the
author has overlooked important sources of information,—such as
Winthrop’s _History of New England_,[430] which is not named in his
list of authorities (p. 533), and which he seems to have known only
at second-hand through the citations of Hutchinson and of Ferland;
and the original papers connected with La Tour and D’Aulnay in the
_Collections_ of the Massachusetts Historical Society. On the other
hand, he had access for the first time to very valuable manuscript
materials, which greatly enlarge our knowledge on not a few points
previously obscure.[431]
The _Cours d’Histoire du Canada_ of the Abbé Ferland is mainly devoted
to what is now known as Canada; but there are several chapters in it
on Acadian affairs. By birth and choice a Canadian, “and above all a
Catholic,” as he himself avows, his statements and inferences need to
be scrutinized carefully. He had, however, gathered considerable new
material, his narrative is clearly and compactly written, and his work
must rank among the best of the modern compilations.[432]
[Illustration: F Parkman]
The same, or nearly the same, may be said of Garneau’s _Histoire
du Canada_. The chapters on Acadia are based on materials easily
accessible, and they add no new facts to those given by the earlier
writers; but his narrative is clear and exact, and not much colored by
the writer’s point of view. He had not, however, so firm a grasp of his
subject as had Ferland; and for the period covered by this inquiry the
latter may be read with much greater pleasure and profit.[433]
An English translation of Garneau’s work was published some years after
its first appearance, with omissions and alterations by the translator,
who regarded the subject from an entirely different point of view,
and who did not hesitate to modify occasionally the statements of the
author, besides adding a great body of valuable notes.[434]
Another recent work which may be profitably consulted on the early
history of Acadia is Henry Kirke’s _First English Conquest of
Canada_.[435] This work deals mainly with the lives of Sir David Kirke
and his brothers, and its chief value is biographical; but it comprises
some hitherto unpublished documents from the Record Office, and throws
considerable light on obscure portions of the early history of Canada
and Acadia.
Among these more recent writers the highest place belongs to Francis
Parkman. In his _Pioneers of France in the New World_[436] he has
given an account of the first settlement of the French in Acadia which
is not less accurate in its minutest details than it is picturesque
in style and comprehensive in its grasp of the subject. Mr. Parkman
needed only a story of wider relations and more continuous influence
to secure for his book a foremost place among American histories.
In his _Frontenac_[437] he has told with equal vividness the story
of the marauding warfare which devastated the coast of Acadia and
the contiguous English settlements from 1689 to 1697. No one of our
historians has been more unwearied in research, as no one has been more
skilful in handling his materials. Based in great part on original
manuscripts from the French archives and on contemporaneous narratives,
his volumes leave nothing to be desired for the period which they cover.
[Illustration: Ch. C. Smith]
EDITORIAL NOTES.
=A.= A Commissioner of Public Records of Nova Scotia was appointed
in 1857, and by his list, printed in 1864, it appears that but one
of the two hundred and four volumes in which the archives were
arranged had papers of a date earlier than 1700, and that this volume
contained copies of copies from the archives in Paris made for the
Canadian Government, and covered the years 1632-1699. The Library
of Parliament _Catalogue_, p. 1538, shows that vol. i. of the third
series of manuscripts (1654-1699) is devoted to Acadia. A Nova Scotia
Historical Society, instituted a few years ago, has as yet published
but one volume of Reports and Collections for 1878, but it contains
contributions to a later period in the history of Acadia than that now
under consideration.
=B.= THE WAR IN MAINE AND ACADIA.—The revolution which deposed Andros
in Boston was also the occasion of withdrawing the garrisons from the
English posts toward Acadia; and this invited in turn the onsets of the
enemy. It was calculated in 1690 that there were between Boston and
Canso four thousand two hundred and ten Indians,—a census destined to
be diminished, indeed, so that in 1726 the savages were only rated for
the same territory at five hundred and six (_N. E. Hist. and Geneal.
Reg._, 1866, p. 9). But this diminution meant a process of appalling
war. In the spring of 1689 came the catastrophe at Choceco (now Dover).
Belknap, in his _New Hampshire_, gives a sufficient narrative; and Dr.
Quint, in his notes to Pike’s Journal (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xiv.
124), indicates the manuscript sources. For the capture of the stockade
at Pemaquid, which quickly followed, we have the French side in the
_Relation_ of Father Thury, the priest of the mission to the Penobscot
Indians, who was in the action, and La Motte-Cadillac’s _Mémoire sur
l’Acadie_, 1692. Cf. the references in Shea’s _Charlevoix_, iv. 42. The
English side can be gathered from Mather’s _Magnalia; Andros Tracts_,
vol. iii.; 3 _Mass. Hist. Coll._ vol. i.; Hough’s “Pemaquid Papers,” in
_Maine Hist. Soc. Coll._, vol. v.; Hubbard’s _Indian Wars_, and John
Gyles’s _Memoirs_, Boston, 1736 (see _Mem. Hist. Boston_, ii. 336). The
story, more or less colored, under new lights or local associations, is
told in Hutchinson’s _Massachusetts_, Thornton’s _Ancient Pemaquid_,
Johnston’s _Bristol, Bremen, and Pemaquid_ (p. 170), and of course in
Williamson and Parkman.
The _Relation_ of Monseignat (_N. Y. Col. Doc._, vol. ix.) and La
Potherie are the chief French accounts on the surprise at Salmon Falls,
in March, 1690, and according to Parkman, “Charlevoix adds various
embellishments not to be found in the original sources.” On the English
side, it is still Mather’s _Magnalia_ upon which we must depend,
and, as a secondary authority, upon Belknap’s _New Hampshire_ and
Williamson’s _Maine_. Parkman points out the help which sundry papers
in the _Massachusetts Archives_ afford; and Dr. Quint, in his notes
to Pike’s Journal (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xiv. 125), has indicated
other similar sources.
[Illustration: POSITION OF FORT LOYAL.]
The attack on Fort Loyal (Portland), in May, 1690, is studied likewise
from Monseignat, La Potherie, Mather, with some fresh light out of the
“Declaration” of Sylvanus Davis, in 3 _Mass. Hist. Coll._, i. 101, and
Bradstreet’s letter to Governor Leisler, in _Doc. Hist. N. Y._, ii.
259. Le Clercq gives the French view; cf. Shea’s _Charlevoix_, iv. 133,
and _Le Clercq_, ii. 295; Willis’s _Portland_, p. 284, and _N. Y. Col.
Doc._, ix. 472.
Meanwhile Phips had sailed from Boston in April to attack Port Royal.
He anchored before its defences on the 10th of May. The place was
quickly surrendered to Phips, on the 11th of May, by De Meneval, its
governor, who did not escape the imputation of treachery at the time.
Parkman (_Frontenac_, pp. 237,) and Shea (_Charlevoix_, iv. 155) give
the authorities. Parkman says Charlevoix’s own narrative is erroneous;
but on the French side we still have Monseignat and Potherie, though
both are brief; the _Relation de la prise du Port Royal par les Anglois
de Baston_, May 27, 1690; the official _Lettre au Ministre_ of Meneval,
and the _Rapport de Champigny_, of October, 1690. Cf. _N. Y. Col.
Doc._, iii. 720; ix. 474, 475.
[Illustration]
On the English side we have Governor Bradstreet’s instructions to Phips
and an invoice of the plunder, in the _Mass. Archives; a Journal of the
Expedition from Boston to Port Royal_, among George Chalmers’ papers
in the Sparks Manuscripts at Harvard College, perhaps the document
referred to by Hutchinson, in speaking of Phips, as “his Journal;” the
unhistoric overflow of Cotton Mather’s _Life of Phips_, and sundry
extracts embodied in Bowen’s _Life of Phips_. Murdoch, in his _Nova
Scotia_, ch. xxii., gives a summarized account.
[Illustration]
During Phips’s ill-starred expedition to Quebec in the autumn of the
same year, Colonel Benjamin Church was ineffectually employed in
creating diversions in Phips’s favor in this lower region. See Dr.
Henry M. Dexter’s edition of Church’s _History of the Expedition to
the East_, and additional letters of Church in Drake’s additions to
Baylies’ _Old Colony_, pt. v.; and in 4 _Mass. Hist. Coll._, v. 271.
Williamson (_Maine_, i. 624) summarizes the authorities.
Two years later the rapine began afresh. York in Maine was captured and
burned in 1692 by the Abenakis, one of whose chiefs gave to Champigny
the narrative which he sent to the Minister, Oct. 5, 1692, which
Parkman calls the best French account. The Indians also gave Villebon
the exaggerated story which he gives in his _Journal de ce qui s’est
passé à l’Acadie_, 1691-1692. On the English side, we have the account
in Mather’s _Magnalia_, and the later summaries of Williamson and of
the general historians.
In June, Portneuf and St. Castin, with their savage followers, left
Pentagöet to attack the frontier post of Wells, but they were foiled,
and retreated. Villebon is here the principal French authority; and on
the English side, to the more general accounts of Mather, Hutchinson,
Williamson, and to the eclectic summary of Niles’s _Indian and French
Wars_, we must add the local historian Bourne’s _History of Wells_.
[Illustration: PEMAQUID.]
The reader can best follow Parkman (_Frontenac_, p. 357, etc.), who
carefully notes the authorities for the way in which Frontenac was
foiled in 1693 in an attempt to capture the English post at Pemaquid;
and for the attack on Oyster River the next year (1694), Parkman’s
references may be collated with Shea’s (_Charlevoix_, iv. 256). The
expedition was under the conduct of Villieu and the Jesuit Thury,
and what was then known as Oyster River is now Durham, about twenty
miles from Portsmouth. Villieu’s own Journal is preserved: _Relation
du Voyage fait par le Sieur de Villieu ... pour faire la Guerre aux
Anglois au printemps de l’an 1694_, and Parkman says Champigny,
Frontenac, and Callières in their reports adopt Villieu’s statements.
Belknap’s _New Hampshire_ has the best English account, which may be
supplemented by various papers in the _Provincial Records of New
Hampshire_, and the Journal of Pike in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xiv.
128, with Dr. Quint’s notes. The _Mass. Archives_ have depositions and
letters.
In 1696 Iberville, in charge of two war-ships which had come from
France, uniting with such forces and savage allies as Villebon,
Villieu, St. Castin, and Thury could gather, appeared on the 14th of
August before the English fort at Pemaquid, which quickly surrendered.
Pemaquid is a peninsula on the Maine coast between the mouths of the
Kennebec and Penobscot, and the fort was situated as shown in the
accompanying sketch. It was the most easterly of the English posts in
this debatable territory, as the French fort at Biguyduce (Pentagöet
or Castine) was the most westerly of the enemy’s. The fort at Pemaquid
had been rebuilt of stone by Phips in 1692. (Mather’s _Magnalia_,
Johnston’s _Bristol and Bremen_.) Baudoin, an Acadian priest,
accompanied the expedition, and wrote a _Journal d’une voyage fait
avec M. d’Iberville_, and Parkman also cites as contemporary French
authorities the _Relation de ce qui s’est passé_, etc., of 1695-1696,
and Des Goutin’s letter to the Minister of Sept. 23, 1696; cf. _N. Y.
Col. Docs._, vol. ix.
Mather and Hutchinson are still the chief writers on the English side,
while everything of local interest is gathered in Johnston’s_ History
of Bristol and Bremen, in Maine, including Pemaquid_, Albany, 1873.
[Illustration]
The immediate result of the capture of Pemaquid was to release
D’Iberville for an attempt to drive the English from the east coast of
Newfoundland in 1697. Parkman tells the story in his _Frontenac_, p.
391, and by him and by Shea in his _Charlevoix_, v. 46, the original
sources are traced.
Mr. Parkman (_Frontenac_, p. 408) has an important note on the military
insufficiency of the English colonies at this time.
=C.= THREATENED FRENCH ATTACKS UPON BOSTON.—Ever after the surrender
of the region east of the Penobscot to the French in 1670, there were
recurrent hopes of the French to make reprisals on the English by an
attack on Boston, and emissaries of the French occasionally reported
upon the condition of that town. Grandfontaine, on being empowered to
receive the posts of Acadia from the English (_Massachusetts Archives:
Documents Collected in France_, ii. 209, 211), had been instructed,
March 5, 1670, to make Pentagöet his seat of government; and it was at
Boston, July 7, 1670, that he and Temple concluded terms of peace; and
we have (Ibid., ii. 227) a statement of the condition of the fort at
Pentagöet when it was turned over. Talon (Ibid., ii. 247) shortly after
informed the King of his intention to go to Acadia (Nov. 2, 1671),
hoping for a conference with Temple, whom he reports as disgusted with
the government at Boston, “which is more republican than monarchical;”
and the Minister, in response, June 4, 1672 (Ibid., ii. 265), intimates
that it might do to give naturalization papers and other favors to
Temple, if he could be induced to come over to the French side. In
1678 new hopes were entertained, and under date of March 21, we find
(Ibid., ii. 359) the French had procured a description of Boston and
its shipping. Frontenac and Duchesneau were each representing to the
Court the disadvantages Canada was under in relation to the trade of
the eastern Indians, with Boston offering such rivalry (Ibid., ii. 363;
iii. 12); and Duchesneau, Nov. 14, 1679, enlarges upon a description
of Boston and its defenceless condition (Ibid., ii. 371). When the
English made peace with the Abenakis in 1681, Frontenac reported it to
the Court, with his grievances at the aggressions of the Boston people,
to whom he had sent De la Vallière to demand redress (Ibid., iii. 29,
31); and to end the matter, Duchesneau, Nov. 13, 1681, proposed to
the Minister the purchase of the English colonies. “It is true,” he
says, “that Boston, which is an English town, does not acknowledge the
sovereignty of the Duke of York at all, and very little the authority
of the English King” (Ibid., iii. 35). The French meanwhile had assumed
a right to Pemaquid, and Governor Dongan of New York had ordered them
to withdraw (Ibid., iii. 81), while complications with the “Bastonnais”
increased rapidly (Ibid., iii. 49). De Grosellier sent to the Minister
new accounts of the Puritan town and its situation (Ibid., iii. 450);
and the Bishop of Quebec remonstrated with the King for his permitting
Huguenots to settle in Acadie, since they held communication with the
people of Boston, and increased the danger (Ibid., iii. 95). The King
in turn addressed himself rather to demanding of the Duke of York that
he should see the English at Boston did not aid the savages of Acadia.
In 1690 more active measures were proposed. On the day before Phips
anchored at Port Royal, a “Projet” was drawn up at Versailles for an
attack on Boston, in which its defenceless state was described:—
“La costé de Baston est peuplée, mais il n’y à aucun poste qui
veille. Baston mesme est sans palissades à moins qu’on n’en ait mis
depuis six mois. Il y a bien du peuple en cette colonie, mais assez
difficile à rassembler. Monsieur Perrot connoist cette coste, et le
Sieur de Villebon qui est à la Rochelle à present, avec le nommé La
Motte,—tous le trois ont souvent esté à Baston et à Manat.... Par la
carte suivante, on peut voir comme ce pays se trouve situé,” etc.
The capture of Pemaquid in 1696 revived hopes in the French of making a
successful descent upon Boston, and even upon New York.
Several documents in reference to the scheme, and respecting in part
Franquelin’s map of Boston, are in the _Mass. Archives; Documents
Collected in France_, iv. 467, etc. This map is given in the _Memorial
History of Boston_, vol. ii. p. li, from a copy made by Mr. Poore,
and in Mr. Parkman’s manuscript collections. In the same place will
be found accounts of earlier French maps of Boston (1692-1693), one
of them by Franquelin, but both very inexact. The references on this
projected inroad of the French are given by Parkman (_Frontenac_, p.
384), Shea (_Charlevoix_, v. 70), and Barry (_Massachusetts_, ii. 89,
etc.).
CHAPTER V.
DISCOVERY ALONG THE GREAT LAKES.
BY THE REV. EDWARD D. NEILL, A.B., ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA.
_Corresponding Member Massachusetts Historical Society; Hon.
Vice-President New England Historic Genealogical Society._
PURCHAS in his _Pilgrimage_ quaintly writes, that “the great river
Canada hath, like an insatiable merchant, engrossed all these water
commodities, so that other streames are in a manner but meere
pedlers.”[438]
This river of Canada, the Hochelaga of the natives, now known as the
St. Lawrence, is the most wonderful of all the streams of North America
which find their way into the Atlantic Ocean. Its extreme headwaters
are on the elevated plateau of the continent, near the birthplace of
the Mississippi, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico, and the Red
River of the North, which empties into Hudson’s Bay. Expanding into
the interior sea, Lake Superior, after rippling and foaming over the
rocks at Sault Ste. Marie it divides into Lake Michigan and Lake Huron;
and passing through the latter and Lake St. Claire[439] and Lake Erie,
with the energy of an infuriated Titan it dashes itself into foam and
mist at Niagara. After recovering composure, it becomes Ontario, the
“beautiful lake,”[440] and then, hedged in by scenery varied, sublime,
and picturesque, and winding through a thousand isles, it becomes
the wide and noble river which admits vessels of large burden to the
wharves of the cities of Montreal and Quebec; and until lost in the
Atlantic, “many islands are before it, offering their good-nature to be
mediators between this haughty stream and the angry ocean.”[441] The
aborigines, who dwelt in rude lodges near its banks, chiefly belonged
to the Huron or Algonquin family; and although there were variations in
dialect, they found no difficulty in understanding one another, and in
their light canoes they made long journeys, on which they exchanged the
copper implements and agate arrow-heads of the far West for the shells
and commodities of the sea-shore.[442]
Cartier, born at the time that the discoveries of Columbus were being
discussed throughout Europe, who had toughened into a daring navigator,
sailed in 1535 up the St. Lawrence, giving the river its present name,
and on the 2d of October he reached the site now occupied by the city
of Montreal. Escorted by wondering and excited savages, he went to the
top of the hill behind the Indian village, and listened to descriptions
of the country from whence they obtained _caignetdaze_, or red copper,
which was reached by the River Utawas, which then glittered like a
silver thread amid the scarlet leaves of the autumnal forest.[443]
The explorations of the French and English in the western world led
the merchants of both countries to seek for its furs, and to hope for
a shorter passage through it to “the wealth of Ormus and of Ind.”
Apsley, a London dealer in beads, playing-cards, and gewgaws in the
days of Queen Elizabeth, wrote that he expected to live long enough to
see a letter in three months carried to China by a route that would
be discovered across the American continent, between the forty-third
and forty-sixth parallel of north latitude.[444] The explorations
of Champlain have been sketched in an earlier chapter.[445] To the
incentive of the fur-trade a new impulse was added when, in the spring
of 1609, some Algonquins visited the trading-post, and one of the
chiefs brought from his sack a piece of copper a foot in length, a fine
and pure specimen. He said that it came from the banks of a tributary
of a great lake, and that it was their custom to melt the copper lumps
which they found, and roll them into sheets with stones.
It was in 1611, when returning from one of his visits to France,
where he had become betrothed to a twelve-year-old maiden, Helen,
the daughter of a Huguenot, Nicholas Boullé, secretary of the King’s
Chamber, that Champlain pushed forward his western occupation by
establishing a frontier trading-post where now is the city of Montreal,
and arranging for trade with the distant Hurons, who were assembled at
Sault St. Louis.
Again in 1615, as we have seen, he extended his observations to Lake
Huron, while on his expedition against the Iroquois. With the Hurons
he passed the following winter, and visited neighboring tribes, but
in the spring of 1616 returned to Quebec; and although nearly twenty
years elapsed before his remains were placed in a grave in that city,
he appears to have been contented as the discoverer of Lakes Champlain,
Huron, and Ontario, and relinquished farther westward exploration to
his subordinates.
The fur-trade of Canada produced a class of men hardy, agile, fearless,
and in habits approximating to the savage.[446] Inured to toil, the
_voyageurs_ arose in the morning, “when it was yet dark,” and pushing
their birch-bark canoes into the water, swiftly glided away, “like the
shade of a cloud on the prairie,” and often did not break fast until
the sun had been for hours above the horizon. Halting for a short
period, they partook of their coarse fare, then re-embarking they
pursued their voyage to the land of the beaver and buffalo, the woods
echoing their _chansons_ until the “shades of night began to fall,”
when,
“Worn with the long day’s march and the chase of the deer and the
bison,
Stretched themselves on the ground, and slept where the
quivering firelight
Flashed on their swarthy cheeks, and their forms wrapped up in their
blankets.”
Among the pioneers of these wanderers in the American forests was
Étienne (Anglicized, Stephen) Brulé, of Champigny.[447] It has been
mentioned that he went with Champlain to the Huron villages near
Georgian Bay, but did not with his Superior cross Lake Ontario. After
three years of roaming, he came back to Montreal, and told Champlain
that he had found a river which he descended until it flowed into a
sea,—the river by some supposed to be the Susquehanna, and the sea
Chesapeake Bay.[448] While in this declaration he may have depended
upon his imagination, yet to him belongs the undisputed honor of being
the first white man to give the world a knowledge of the region beyond
Lake Huron.
Sagard[449] mentions that this bold _voyageur_, with a Frenchman
named Grenolle, made a long journey, and returned with a “lingot”
of red copper and with a description of Lake Superior which defined
it as very large, requiring nine days to reach its upper extremity,
and discharging itself into Lake Huron by a fall, first called Saut
de Gaston, afterward Sault Ste. Marie. Upon the surrender of Quebec,
in 1629, to the English, Étienne Brulé chose to cast in his lot with
the conquerors.[450] During the occupation of nearly three years the
English heard many stories of the region of the Great Lakes, and they
encouraged the aborigines of the Hudson and Susquehanna to purchase
English wares.
The very year that the English occupied Quebec, Ferdinando Gorges and
associates, who had employed men to search for a great lake, received a
patent for the province of Laconia, and the governor thereof arrived in
June, 1630, in the ship “Warwick,” at Piscataway, New Hampshire.[451]
Early in June, 1632, Captain Henry Fleet, in the “Warwick,” visited the
Anacostans, whose village stood on the shores of the Potomac where now
is seen the lofty dome of the Capitol of the Republic. These Indians
told Fleet that they traded with the Canada Indians; and on the 27th of
the month, at the Great Falls of the Potomac, he saw two axes of the
pattern brought over by the brothers Kyrcke to Quebec.[452]
About the time Quebec was restored to the French, on the 23d of
September, 1633,[453] Captain Thomas Young received a commission from
the King of England to make certain explorations in America.[454] The
next spring he sailed, and among his officers was a “cosmographer,
skilful in mines and trying of metals.” Entering Delaware Bay on the
24th of July, 1634, he sailed up the river, which he named Charles, in
honor of the King, and by the 1st of September had reached the vicinity
of the falls, above Trenton, the capital of New Jersey. In a report
from this river, dated the 20th of October, he writes: “I passed up
this great river, with purpose to have pursued the discovery thereof
till I had found the great lake[455] from which the great river issues,
and from thence I have particular reason to believe there doth also
issue some branches, one or more, by which I might have passed into
that Mediterranean Sea which the Indian relateth to be four days’
journey beyond the mountains; but having passed near fifty leagues up
the river, I was stopped from further proceedings by a ledge of rocks
which crosseth the river.”
He then expresses a determination the next summer to build a vessel
above the falls, from whence he hoped to find “a way that leadeth into
that mediterranean sea,” and from the lake. He continues: “I judge that
it cannot be less than one hundred and fifty or two hundred leagues
in length to our North Ocean; and from thence I purpose to discover
the mouths thereof, which discharge both into the North and South
Sea.”[456] The same month that Captain Young was exploring the Valley
of the Delaware, an expedition left Quebec which was not so barren of
results.
The year that Étienne Brulé came back from his wandering in the far
West, in 1618, Jean Nicolet, the son of poor parents at Cherbourg, came
from France, and entered the service of the fur company known as the
“Hundred Associates,” under Champlain. For several years he lived among
the Algonquins of the Ottawa Valley, and traded with the Hurons; and
because of his knowledge of the language of these people, he was valued
as an interpreter by the trading company. On the 4th day of July, 1634,
on his eventful journey to distant nations, he was at Three Rivers, a
trading post just begun. Threading his way in a frail canoe among the
isles which extend from Georgian Bay to the extremity of Lake Huron,
he, through the Straits of Mackinaw, discovered Lake Michigan, and
turning southward found its Grand Bay, an inlet of the western shore,
and impressive by its length and vastness.
Here were the Gens de Mer,[457] or Ochunkgraw, called by the
Algonquins Ouinipegous or Ouinipegouek,—people of the salt or
bad-smelling water; and the traders gave them the name of Puants.
Calling a council of these Winnebagoes and the neighboring tribes,
and knowing the power of display upon the savage, he appeared before
them in a grand robe of the damask of China, on which was worked
flowers and birds of different colors, and holding a pistol in each
hand,—a somewhat amusing reminder of the Jove of mythology, with his
variegated mantle and thunderbolts. To many he seemed a messenger from
the spirit-land; and the women and children, on account of his pistols,
called him the man who bore thunder in his hands.[458]
Nicolet announced that he was a peacemaker, and that he desired that
they should settle their quarrels and be on friendly terms with the
French at Quebec. His words were well received, and one chief, at the
conclusion of the conference, invited him to a feast, at which one
hundred and twenty beaver were served. He came back to Three Rivers
during the next summer, and renewed the interest in the discovery of a
route to the Western Ocean, by the declaration that if he had paddled
three days more on a large river (probably the Wisconsin), he would
have found the sea. There was no design to deceive; but the great water
at that distance was what has been called “the father of waters,” the
Mississippi. Before December, 1635, he was appointed interpreter at
the new trading-post of Three Rivers, and was there when, on Christmas
Day, at the age of sixty-eight years, one who had been the life of the
fur-trade and the Governor of New France, Samuel de Champlain, expired
at Quebec. After the death of the fearless and enterprising Champlain,
there was a lull in the zest for discovery, and then difficulties arose
which for a time led to the abandonment of all the French trading-posts
on the shores of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan.
The Iroquois had for years longed to be revenged upon those who, with
the aid of French arquebuses, had defeated them in battle. Friendly
relations were established between them and the Dutch traders on the
banks of the Hudson River; and for beaver skins, powder and firearms
were received. With these they gratified their desire for revenge. They
became a terror to the savage and civilized in Canada; and traders and
missionaries, women and infants, fled from their scalping-knives.
The following graphic description of affairs was penned in 1653:—
“The war with the Iroquois has dried up all sources of prosperity. The
beaver are allowed to build their dams in peace, none being able or
willing to molest them. Crowds of Hurons no longer descend from their
country with furs for trading. The Algonquin country is depopulated,
and the nations beyond it are retiring farther away, fearing the
musketry of the Iroquois. The keeper of the Company’s store here in
Montreal has not bought a single beaver-skin for a year. At Three
Rivers, the small means in hand have been used in fortifying the
place, from fear of an inroad upon it. In the Quebec storehouse all is
emptiness.”
At length, in the year 1654, peace was effected between the French and
Iroquois, and traders again appeared on the upper lakes, and Indians
from thence appeared at Montreal. In August, two Frenchmen accompanied
some Ottawas to the region of the upper lakes; and in the latter part
of August, 1656, these traders came back to Quebec with a party of
Ottawas,[459] whose canoes were loaded with peltries; and about this
time a trader told a Jesuit missionary that “he had seen three thousand
men together, for the purpose of making a treaty of peace, in the
country of the Gens de Mer.”
[Illustration]
In 1659, while the new governor Argenson was experiencing the
perplexities of administration at Quebec, the extremity of Lake
Superior was reached by two energetic and intelligent traders,—Medard
Chouart, known in history as Sieur des Groseilliers, and Pierre
d’Esprit or Sieur Radisson. Chouart was born a few miles east of Meaux,
and left France when he was about sixteen years of age, and became
a trader among the Hurons. In 1647 he married the widow Étienne,
of Quebec, the father of whom was the pilot Abraham Martin, whose
baptismal name was given to the suburb of that city, the Plains of
Abraham. She gave birth to a son in 1651, named after his father, and
soon after died. Chouart, the Sieur des Groseilliers, then married
Marguérite Hayet Radisson, and through her he became a sympathizer
with the Huguenots.[460] His brother-in-law, Sieur Radisson, was born
at St. Malo, France, and in 1656 married at Three Rivers, Canada,
Elizabeth Herault; and after her death he espoused a daughter of the
zealous Protestant, Sir David Kyrcke, to whose brothers Champlain had
surrendered Quebec.
Pushing beyond Lake Superior, after travelling six days in a
southwesterly direction, these traders found the Tionnotantés, a band
incorporated with the Hurons, called by the French Petuns, because
they had raised tobacco. These people dwelt in the country between
the sources of the Black and Chippeway Rivers in Wisconsin, where
they had been wanderers for several years. Driven from their homes by
the Iroquois, they migrated with the Ottawas to the isles of Lake
Michigan, at the entrance of Green Bay. Hearing that the Iroquois had
learned where they had retreated, they descended the Wisconsin River
until they found the Mississippi, and, ascending this twelve leagues,
they came to the Ayoes (Ioway) River, now known as the Upper Iowa, and
followed it to its source, being kindly treated by the tribes. Although
buffaloes were in abundance, they were disappointed when they found no
forests, and retracing their steps to the Mississippi, ascended to a
prairie island above Lake Pepin, about nine miles below the mouth of
the River St. Croix, and here they often received friendly visits from
the Sioux. Confident through the possession of firearms, the Ottawas
and Hurons conspired to drive the Sioux away, and occupy their country.
The attack was unsuccessful, and they were forced to look for another
residence. Going down the Mississippi, they entered one of the mouths
of the Black River, near the modern city La Crosse, and the Hurons
established themselves about its sources, while their allies, the
Ottawas, continued their journey to Lake Superior, and stopped at a
point jutting out like a bone needle,—hence called Chagouamikon.
Groseilliers and Radisson, while sojourning with the Hurons, learned
much of the deep, wide, and beautiful river, comparable in its
grandeur to the St. Lawrence,[461] on an isle of which they had for
a time resided. Proceeding northward, these explorers wintered with
the Nadouechiouec, who hunted and fished among the “Mille Lacs” of
Minnesota, between the St. Croix and Mississippi Rivers. The Sioux, as
these people were called by traders, were found to speak a language
different from the Huron and Algonquin, and to have many strange
customs. Women, for instance, were seen whose noses had been cut off
as a penalty for adultery, giving them a ghastly look. Beyond, upon
the northwest shore of Lake Superior, about the Grand Portage, and at
the mouth of a river which upon early maps was called Groseilliers,
there was met a separated warlike band of Sioux, called Poualak, who,
as wood was scarce in the prairie region, made fire with coal (_charbon
de terre_), and lived in skin lodges, although some of the more
industrious built cabins of mud (_terre grasse_), as the swallows build
their nests. The Assinepoualacs, or Assineboines, were feared by the
Upper, as the Iroquois were dreaded by the Lower, Algonquins.
After an absence of about a year, these traders, about the 19th of
August, 1660, returned to Montreal with three hundred Indians and sixty
canoes laden with a “wealth of skins,”—
“Furs of bison and of beaver,
Furs of sable and of ermine.”
The settlers there, and at Three Rivers, and at Quebec, were deeply
interested by the tales of the vastness and richness of the new-found
land and the peculiarities of the wild Sioux. As soon as the furs were
sold and a new outfit obtained, Groseilliers, on the 28th of August,
again took his way to the westward, accompanied by six Frenchmen,
besides the aged Jesuit missionary René Menard and his servant Guérin.
Just beyond the Huron Isles and Huron Bay, which still retain their
name, on the southern shore of Lake Superior, is Keweenaw Bay; and
on the 15th of October, Saint Theresa’s Day in the calendar of the
Church of Rome, the traders and René Menard, with the returning
Indians, stopped, and here some traders and the missionary passed the
winter among the Outaouaks.[462] Father Menard, discouraged by the
indifference of these Indians, resolved to go to the retreat of the
Hurons among the marshes of what is now the State of Wisconsin. He sent
three Frenchmen who had been engaged in the fur-trade to inform them of
his intention; but after journeying for some days they were appalled by
the bogs, rapids, and long portages, and returned. Undaunted by their
tale of the difficulties of the way, and some Hurons having come to
visit the Outaouaks, he resolved to return with them. On the 13th of
June, 1661, Menard and his servant, Jean Guérin, by trade a gunsmith,
followed in the footsteps of their Indian guides, who, however, soon
forsook them in the wilderness. For fifteen days they remained by a
lake, and finding a small canoe in the bushes, they embarked with
their packs; and week after week in midsummer, annoyed by myriads of
mosquitoes, and suffering from heat, hunger, and bruised feet, they
advanced toward their destination, and about the 7th of August, while
Guérin was making a portage around a rapid in a river, Menard lost the
trail. His servant, becoming anxious, called for him, yet there was no
answer; and then he five times fired his gun, in the hope of directing
him to the right path, but it was of no avail. Two days after, Guérin
reached the Huron village, and endeavored without success to employ
some of the tribe to go in search of the aged missionary.
Afterward Guérin met a Sauk Indian with Menard’s kettle, which he said
he found in the woods, near footprints going in the direction of the
Sioux country.[463] His breviary and cassock were said to have been
found among the Sioux, and it is supposed that he was either killed,
or died from exposure, and that his effects were taken by wandering
Indians.[464] Perrot writes: “The Father followed the Ottawas to the
Lake of the Illinois [Michigan], and in their flight to Louisiana
[Mississippi] as far as the upper part of Black River.” Upon a map
prepared by Franquelin, in 1688,[465] for Louis XIV., there is a
route marked by a dotted line from the vicinity of Keweenaw Bay to the
upper part of Green Bay. If Perrot’s statement is correct, Menard and
his devoted attendant Guérin saw the Mississippi twelve years before
Joliet and his companion looked upon the great river. The reports
of Nicolet and Groseilliers led to a correction and enlargement of
the charts of New France. On a map[466] accompanying the _Historia
Canadensis_, by Creuxius, Lake Michigan is marked as “Magnus Lacus
Algonquinorum, seu Lacus Fœtetium,” and a lake intended for Nepigon is
called “Assineboines,” near which appear the nations Kilistinus and
Alimibegôecus. The lake of the Assineboines is connected by a river
with an arm of Hudson’s Bay called “Kilistonum Sinus;” and west of this
is Jametus Sinus, or James’s Bay.
Pierre Boucher, an estimable man, sent by the inhabitants of Canada to
present their grievances to the King of France, in a little book which
in 1663 he published at Paris,[467] wrote: “In Lake Superior there is
a great island which is fifty leagues in circumference, in which there
is a very beautiful mine of copper.” He also stated that he had heard
of other mines from five Frenchmen lately returned, who had been absent
three years, and that they had seen an ingot of copper which they
thought weighed more than eight hundred pounds, and that Indians after
making a fire thereon would cut off pieces with their axes.
Groseilliers[468] returned to Canada, and on the 2d of May, 1662,
again left Quebec, with ten men, for the North Sea, or Hudson’s Bay.
His journey satisfied him that it was easy to secure the trade of
the North by way of Lake Superior; but the Company of Canada, which
had the monopoly of the fur traffic, looked upon Groseilliers’ plans
for securing the peltries of distant tribes as chimerical. Thus
disappointed and chagrined, Groseilliers next went to Boston, and
presented his schemes to its merchants.
The Reverend Mother of the Incarnation, Superior of the Ursulines at
Quebec, in allusion to him, wrote: “As he had not been successful in
making a fortune, he was seized with a fancy to go to New England to
better his condition. He excited a hope among the English that he
had found a passage to the Sea of the North.” Passing from Boston to
France, and securing the influence of the English ambassador at Paris,
he went to London, and became acquainted with Prince Rupert, nephew of
Charles I., who led the cavalry charge against Fairfax and Cromwell
at Naseby. This brilliant man was now devoted to study and to the
exhibition of the philosophical toy known to chemists as “Rupert’s
drops;” but he was ready to indorse the project for extending the
fur-trade, and seeking a northwestern passage to Asia. Men of science
also showed interest in explorations which would enlarge the sphere
of knowledge. The Secretary of the Royal Society wrote a too sanguine
letter to Robert Boyle, the distinguished philosopher, and friend of
the apostle Eliot. His words were: “Surely I need not tell you, from
hence, what is said here with great joy of the discovery of a northwest
passage, and by two Englishmen and one Frenchman, lately represented by
them to his Majesty at Oxford, and answered by the grant of a vessel
to sail into Hudson’s Bay and channel into the South Sea.” The ship
“Nonsuch” was fitted out in charge of Captain Zachary Gillam, a son of
one of the early settlers of Boston, and in this vessel Groseilliers
and Radisson left the Thames in June, 1668, and the next September
reached a tributary of Hudson’s Bay, which in honor of their chief
patron was called Rupert’s River. The next year, by way of Boston, they
returned to England, where their success was applauded; and in 1670 the
trading company was chartered,—still in existence, and among the most
venerable of English corporations,—known as “The Hudson’s Bay Company.”
[Illustration]
While the Canadian Fur Company did not respond to the proposals of
Groseilliers for the extension of commerce, the French Government, in
view of the fact that the Dutch on the south side of the St. Lawrence
and in the valley of the Hudson River had acknowledged allegiance to
England, determined to show more interest in the administration of
Canadian affairs, and Mézy having been recalled, hardly before his
death, Daniel de Remi, Seigneur de Courcelles, was sent as provincial
governor. They also created the new office of Intendant of Justice,
Police, and Finance, and made Talon—a person of talent, experience,
and great energy—the first incumbent. Arriving at Quebec in 1665,
Talon took decided steps for the promotion of agriculture, tanneries,
and fisheries, and was enthusiastic in the desire to see the white
banner of France, with its fleur-de-lis, floating in the far West.[469]
In the autumn of 1668 he took with him to France one of the hardy
_voyageurs_ who had lived in the region of the lakes, and on the 24th
of the next February he writes to Colbert, the Colonial Minister, that
this man “had penetrated among the western nations farther than any
other Frenchman, and had seen the copper mine on Lake Huron. The man
offers to go to that mine and explore, either by sea, or by the lake
and river, the communication supposed to exist between Canada and the
South Sea, or to the region of Hudson’s Bay.”
During the summer of 1669 the active and intelligent Louis Joliet,
with an outfit of four hundred livres, and one Peré, perhaps the
same person who gave his name to a river leading from Lake Nepigon
to Hudson’s Bay,[470] with an outfit of one thousand livres, went to
search for copper on the shores of Lake Superior, and to discover a
more direct route from the upper lakes to Montreal. Joliet went as far
as Sault Ste. Marie, where he did not long remain; but in the place of
a mine found an Iroquois prisoner among the Ottawas at that point, and
obtained permission to take him back to Canada. In company with another
Frenchman, he was led by the Iroquois from Lake Erie through the valley
of the Grand River to Lake Ontario, and on the 24th of September, at
an Iroquois village between this river and the head of Burlington Bay,
he met La Salle with four canoes and fifteen men, and the Sulpitian
priests, Galinée and De Casson, who on the 6th of July had left the
post at La Chine.
La Salle, alleging ill health, at this point separated from the
missionaries, and Joliet, before proceeding toward Montreal, drew a
chart of the upper lakes for the guidance of the Sulpitians. By the
aid of this the priests reached Lake Erie through a direct river, and
near the lake they erected a hut and passed the winter. On the 23d of
March, 1670, they resumed their voyage, and on the 25th of May reached
Sault Ste. Marie, where there were about twenty-five Frenchmen trading
with the Indians. Here was also the mission of the Jesuits among the
Ottawas,—a square enclosure defended by cedar pickets twelve feet
high, and within were a small house and chapel which had recently been
built. Remaining but three days, they returned to Montreal by the old
route along the French River of Lake Huron to Lake Nipissing, and
thence by portage to the Ottawa River.
About the time of their arrival Talon had learned from some Algonquins
that two European vessels had been seen in Hudson’s Bay, and he wrote
to Colbert,—
“After reflecting on all the nations that might have penetrated as
far north as that, I can fall back only on the English, who under the
conduct of one named Desgrozeliers, in former times an inhabitant of
Canada, might possibly have attempted that navigation, of itself not
much known, and not less dangerous. I design to send by land some men
of resolution to invite the Kilistinons, who are in great numbers in
the vicinity of that bay, to come down to see us as the Ottawas do, in
order that we may have the first handling of what the latter savages
bring us, who, acting as retail dealers between us and those natives,
make us pay for the roundabout way of three or four hundred leagues.”
To draw the trade from the English, it was determined to make an
alliance of friendship with all the nations around Lake Superior.
One of the Frenchmen[471] who roved among the tribes west of Lake
Michigan, and in the valley of the Fox River, was Nicholas Perrot.
Accustomed from boyhood to the scenes and excitements of frontier life,
quick-witted, with some education, a leading spirit among _coureurs
des bois_, and looked upon with respect by the Indians, he was an
intelligent explorer of the interior of the continent. In the spring
of 1670, when twenty-six years of age, Perrot left Green Bay with
a flotilla of canoes filled with peltries and paddled by Indians.
By way of Lake Nipissing he reached the Ottawa River, and descended
to Montreal, and in July he visited Quebec. By the Intendant Talon
he was invited to act as guide and interpreter to his deputy, Simon
François Daumont, the Sieur Saint Lusson, who on the 3d of September
was commissioned to go to Lake Superior to search for copper mines and
confer with the tribes.
It was not until October that Perrot and Saint Lusson left Montreal.
When Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron was reached, it was decided
that Saint Lusson should here remain for the winter hunting and
trading, while Perrot went on and visited the tribes of the Green Bay
region. On the 5th of May, 1671, he met Saint Lusson at Sault Ste.
Marie, accompanied by the principal chiefs of the Sauks, Menomonees,
Pottawattamies, and Winnebagoes. After the delegates of fourteen
tribes had arrived, a council was held, on the 14th of June, by Saint
Lusson, in the presence of the Jesuits André, Claude Allouez, Gabriel
Dreuilletes, and the head of the mission Claude d’Ablon, Nicholas
Perrot the interpreter, Louis Joliet, and some fur-traders;[472] and
a treaty of friendship was formed, and the countries around Lakes
Huron and Superior were taken possession of in the name of Louis XIV.,
King of France. Talon announces the result of the expedition in these
words:—
“Sieur de Saint Lusson is returned, after having advanced as far as
five hundred leagues from here, and planted the cross and set up the
King’s arms in presence of seventeen Indian nations,[473] assembled
on this occasion from all parts, all of whom voluntarily submitted
themselves to the dominion of his Majesty, whom alone they regard as
their sovereign protector. This was effected, according to the account
of the Jesuit Fathers, who assisted at the ceremony, with all the
formality and display the country could afford. I shall carry with me
the record of taking possession prepared by Sieur de Saint Lusson for
securing those countries to his Majesty.
“The place to which the said Sieur de Saint Lusson has penetrated
is supposed to be no more than three hundred leagues from the
extremities of the countries bordering on the Vermillion or South Sea.
Those bordering on the West Sea appear to be no farther from those
discovered by the French. According to the calculation made from the
reports of the Indians and from maps, there seems to remain not more
than fifteen hundred leagues of navigation to Tartary, China, and
Japan. Such discoveries must be the work of either time or of the
King. It can be said that the Spaniards have hardly penetrated farther
into the interior of South, than the French have done up to the
present time into the interior of North, America.
“Sieur de Lusson’s voyage to discover the South Sea and the copper
mine will not cost the King anything. I make no account of it in
my statements, because, having made presents to the savages of the
countries of which he took possession, he has reciprocally received
from them in beaver that which replaces his outlay.”
The Hurons and Ottawas did not arrive in time to witness the formal
taking possession of the country by the representative of France,
having been detained by difficulty with the Sioux. About the year 1662,
the Hurons, who had lingered about the sources of the Black River
of Wisconsin, joined again their old allies, the Ottawas, who were
clustered at the end of the beautiful Chegoimegon Bay of Lake Superior.
The Ottawas lived in one village, made up of three bands,—the Sinagos,
Kenonché, and Kiskakon. After this union, a party of Saulteurs,
Ottawas, Nipissings, and Amikoués were securing white-fish not far from
Sault Ste. Marie, when they discovered the smoke of an encampment of
about one hundred Iroquois. Cautiously approaching, they surprised and
defeated their dreaded foes, at a place to this day known as Iroquois
Point, just above the entrance of Lake Superior.
After this, the Hurons, Ottawas, and Saulteurs returned in triumph to
Keweenaw and Chegoimegon, and remained in quietness until a number of
Hurons went to hunt west of Lake Superior, and were captured by some of
the Sioux. While in captivity they were treated with kindness, asked
to come again, and sent away with presents. Accepting the invitation,
the Sinagos chief, with some warriors and four French traders, visited
the Sioux, and were received with honor and cordiality. Again, a few
Hurons went into the Sioux country, and some of the young warriors
made them prisoners; but the Sioux chief, who had smoked the calumet
with the Sinagos chief, insisted upon their release, and journeyed to
Chegoimegon Bay to make an apology. Upon his arrival, the Hurons proved
tricky, and persuaded the Ottawas to put to death their visitor. It
was not strange that the Sioux were surprised and enraged when they
received the intelligence, and panted for revenge. Marquette, who had
succeeded Allouez at the mission which was between the Huron and Ottawa
villages, in allusion to this disturbance, wrote:—
“Our Outaouacs and Hurons, of the Point of the Holy Ghost, had to
the present time kept up a kind of peace with them [the Sioux], but
matters having become embroiled during last winter, and some murders
having been committed on both sides, our savages had reason to
apprehend that the storm would soon burst on them, and they deemed it
was safer for them to leave the place, which they did in the spring.”
The Jesuits retired with the Hurons and Ottawas, and more than one
hundred and fifty years elapsed before another Christian mission was
attempted in this vicinity, under the “American Board of Foreign
Missions.” The retreating Ottawas did not halt until they reached an
old hunting-ground, the Manitoulin Island of Lake Huron, and the Hurons
stopped at Mackinaw. From time to time they formed war-parties with
other tribes, against the Sioux. In 1674 some Sioux warriors arrived at
Sault Ste. Marie to smoke the pipe of peace with adjacent tribes. At a
grand council the Sioux sent twelve delegates, and the others forty.
During the conference one of the opposite side drew near and brandished
his knife in the face of a Sioux, and called him a coward. The Sioux
replied he was not afraid, when the knife was plunged into his heart,
and he died. A fight immediately began, and the Sioux bravely defended
themselves, although nine were killed. The two survivors fled to
the rude log chapel of the Jesuit mission, and closed the door, and
finding there some weapons they opened fire upon their enemies. Their
assailants wished to burn down the chapel, which the Jesuits would not
allow, as they had beaver skins stored in the loft. In the extremity a
lay brother of the mission, named Louis Le Boeme, advised the firing of
a cannon shot at the cabin’s door. The discharge killed the last two of
the Sioux.[474] Governor Frontenac made complaint against Le Boeme for
this conduct, in a letter to Colbert.[475]
After the Iroquois had made a treaty of peace with the French, they
did not cease to lurk and watch for the Ottawas as they descended to
trade at Montreal, Three Rivers, or Quebec, and, as occasion offered,
rob them of their peltries and tear their scalps from their heads.
Governor Courcelles, in 1671, determined to establish a post on Lake
Ontario which would act as a barrier between the Ottawas and Iroquois,
and at the same time draw off the trade from the Hudson River.
[Illustration]
Before entering upon his journey he had constructed a large plank
flat-boat to ascend the streams,—a novelty which was a surprise. It
was of two or three tons burden, and provided with a strong rope to
haul it over the rapids and shoal places. On the morning of the 3d of
June the expedition left Montreal, consisting of the flat-boat, filled
with supplies and manned by a sergeant and eight soldiers, and thirteen
bark canoes. The party numbered fifty-six persons, who were active and
willing to endure the hardships of the journey. At night, with axe in
hand, the men cut poles for a lodge frame, which they covered with
bark stripped from the trees. The Governor, to protect himself from
mosquitoes, had a little arbor made on the ground, about two feet high,
and covered with a sheet, which touched the ground on all sides, and
prevented the approach of the insects which disturb sleep and irritate
the flesh. The second day of the voyage the flat-boat found difficulty
in passing the first rapids, and Courcelles plunged into the water,
and with the aid of the hardy _voyageurs_ pushed the boat into smooth
water. On the 10th of June the first flat-boat reached the vicinity
of Lake Ontario, and the Governor two days after, in a canoe, reached
the entrance of the lake. Here he found a stream with sufficient water
to float a large boat, and bordered by fine land, which would serve
as a site for a post. On the 14th, at the time that the deputy Saint
Lusson, at Sault Ste. Marie, was taking possession of the region of
Lake Superior, Courcelles was descending the rapids of the St. Lawrence
on his return to Montreal.[476]
[Illustration]
The report of this expedition was sent to Louis XIV., and it met
with his approval; but for the benefit of his health Courcelles
was permitted to return to France, and on the 9th of April, 1672,
Louis de Buade, Count de Frontenac, was appointed Governor and
Lieutenant-General in Canada and other parts belonging to New France.
It was not until the leaves began to grow old that Frontenac arrived
in Quebec, and, full of energy, was ready to push on the work of
exploration which had been initiated by his predecessor. Upon the
advice of the Intendant Talon, he soon despatched Louis Joliet to go
to the Grand River, which the Indians alleged flowed southward to the
sea. Joliet (often spelled Jolliet) was born in Canada, the son of a
wagon-maker. In boyhood he had been a promising scholar in the Jesuits’
school at Quebec, but, imbibing the spirit of the times, while a young
man he became a rover in the wilderness and a trader among Indians.
Three years before his appointment to explore the great river beyond
the lakes, he had been sent with Peré to search for a copper-mine on
Lake Superior, and the year before he stood by the side of Saint Lusson
as he planted the arms of France at Sault Ste. Marie.
It was not until Dec. 8, 1672, that he reached the Straits of Mackinaw,
and as the rivers between that point and the Mississippi were by
this time frozen, he remained there during the winter and following
spring, busy in questioning the Indians who had seen the great river
as to its course, and as to the nations on its shores. On May 17,
1673, he began his journey toward a distant sea. At Mackinaw he found
Marquette, who became his companion, but had no official connection
with the expedition, as erroneously mentioned by Charlevoix. With five
_voyageurs_ and two birch-bark canoes, Joliet and Marquette, by the 7th
of June, had reached a settlement of Kikapous, Miamis, and Mascoutens,
in the valley of the Fox River, and three leagues beyond they found a
short portage by which they reached the Wisconsin River, and following
its tortuous course amid sandbars and islands dense with bushes, on the
17th of June they entered the broad great river called the Mississippi,
walled in by picturesque bluffs, with lofty limestone escarpment, whose
irregular outline looked like a succession of the ruined castles and
towers of the Rhine. In honor of his patron, Governor Frontenac, Joliet
called it Buade, the Governor’s family name. Passing one great river
flowing from the west, he learned that through its valley there was a
route to the Vermeille Sea [Gulf of California], and he saw a village
(which was about five days’ journey from another) which traded with the
people of California.[477]
This river is without name on his map,[478] but on its banks he
places villages of the Missouri, Kansa, Osages, and Pawnee tribes.
The River Ohio he marked with the Indian name Ouabouskigou; and the
Arkansas, beyond which he did not descend, and which was reached about
the middle of July, he named Bazire, after a prominent merchant of
Quebec interested in the fur-trade. After ascending the stream, he
entered the Illinois River, which he designated as the Divine, or
Outrelaise, in compliment, it is supposed, to Frontenac’s wife, a
daughter of Lagrange Trianon, noted for her beauty, and Mademoiselle
Outrelaise, her fascinating friend, who were called in Court circles
“les divines.”[479] Upon the west bank of one of its tributaries, the
Des Plaine River, there stands above the prairie a remarkable elevation
of clay, sand, and gravel, a lonely monument which has withstood the
erosion of a former geologic age. It was a noted landmark to the
Indians in their hunting, and to the French _voyageurs_ on their
trading expeditions. By this Joliet was impressed, and he gave the
elevation his own name, Mont Joliet, which it has retained, while all
the others he marked on his map have been forgotten.[480] It was not
until about the middle of August, 1674, that he returned to Quebec,
and Governor Frontenac, on the 14th of November, writes to the French
Government,—
“Sieur Joliet, whom Monsieur Talon advised me, on my arrival from
France, to despatch for the discovery of the South Sea, returned three
months ago, and found some very fine countries, and a navigation so
easy through the beautiful rivers, that a person can go from Lake
Ontario and Fort Frontenac in a bark to the Gulf of Mexico, there
being only one carrying place, half a league in length, where Lake
Ontario communicates with Lake Erie. A settlement could be made at
this post, and another bark built on Lake Erie.... He has been within
ten days’ journey of the Gulf of Mexico, and believes that water
communication could be found leading to the Vermillion and California
Seas, by means of the river that flows from the west, with the Grand
River that he discovered, which rises from north to south, and is as
large as the St. Lawrence opposite Quebec.
“I send you, by my secretary, the map[481] he has made of it, and the
observations he has been able to recollect, as he lost all his minutes
and journals in the wreck he suffered within sight of Montreal, where,
after having completed a voyage of twelve hundred leagues, he was near
being drowned, and lost all his papers, and a little Indian whom he
brought from those countries.”
Governor Frontenac was satisfied with the importance of establishing a
post on Lake Ontario, as Courcelles had suggested, and in the summer of
1673 visited the region. On the 3d of June he departed from Quebec, and
at five o’clock in the afternoon of the 15th was received at Montreal
amid the roar of cannon and the discharge of musketry. On the 9th of
July he had reached a point supposed to be in the present town of
Lisbon, in St. Lawrence County, New York, at the head of all the rapids
of the St. Lawrence; and while sojourning there, at six o’clock in the
evening two Iroquois canoes arrived with letters from La Salle, who two
months before went into their country.
After exchanging civilities with the Iroquois, and guided by them,
Frontenac was led into a beautiful bay about a cannon-shot from the
River Katarakoui, which so pleased him as a site for a post, that he
stayed until sunset examining the situation. The next day his engineer,
Sieur Raudin, was ordered to trace out the plan of a fort, and on the
morning of the 14th, at daybreak, soldiers and officers with alacrity
began to clear the ground, and in four days the fort was finished,
with the exception of the abatis. After designating the garrison
and workmen who were to remain at the post, and making La Salle the
commandant, on the 27th Frontenac began his homeward voyage, about the
time that Joliet began to ascend the Mississippi from the mouth of the
Arkansas.[482]
The reports of Joliet led to the formation of plans for the occupation
of the valley of the Mississippi by the leading merchants and officers
of Canada; and the application of Joliet, its first explorer, to go
with twenty persons and establish a post among the Illinois, was
refused by the French Government.[483]
Frontenac, in the fall of 1674,[484] sent La Salle to France. Under
the date of the 14th of November, he wrote to Minister Colbert that La
Salle was a man of character and intelligence, adapted to exploration,
and asking him to listen to his plans. A few weeks before La Salle’s
arrival in Paris, the Prince of Condé had fought a battle at Seneffe,
and obtained a victory over the Prince of Orange and the allied
generals, and every one was full of the praise of the King’s household
guards, who without flinching remained eight hours under the fire of
the enemy. La Salle could hardly have thought at that moment that the
future was yet to reveal as his associates in the exploration of the
distant valley of the Mississippi a _gend’arme_ of his Majesty’s guard
and a field chaplain of that bloody day.[485] In a memorial to the
King, he asked for the grant of Fort Frontenac and lands adjacent,
agreeing to repay Frontenac the money he had expended in establishing
the post, to repair it, and keep a garrison therein at his own expense.
He further asked, in consideration of the voyages he had made at his
own expense during the seven years of his residence in Canada, that he
might receive letters of nobility.[486] The King, upon the report of
Colbert, accepted the offer, and on the 13th of May, 1675, conferred
upon La Salle the rank of esquire, with power to attain all grades of
knighthood and _gendarmerie_.[487] This year he came back to Canada
in the same ship with Louis Hennepin, and going to Fort Frontenac in
August, 1676, he increased the buildings, erected a strong wall on the
land side, and strengthened the palisades toward the water. From time
to time he had cattle brought thither from Montreal, and constructed
barks to navigate the lake, keep the Iroquois in check, and deter
the English from trading in the region of the upper lakes.[488] In
November, 1677, he made another visit to France,[489] and obtained
a permit, dated the 12th of May, 1678, allowing him to explore the
western part of New France, with the prospect of penetrating as far as
Mexico.[490] The expedition was to be at the expense of himself and
associates, with the privilege of trade in buffalo skins, but with the
express condition that he should not trade with the Ottawas and other
Indians who brought their beavers to Montreal.
Frontenac was not only in full sympathy with La Salle, but with
other enterprising adventurers, and there is but little doubt that
he shared the profits of the fur-traders. About the time that La
Salle was improving Fort Frontenac as a trading-post, Raudin,[491]
the engineer who had laid out the plan of that fort, was sent by
Frontenac with presents to the Ojibways and Sioux, at the extremity
of Lake Superior.[492] A nephew of Patron, named Daniel Greysolon
du Lhut,[493] and who had made two voyages from France before 1674,
had then entered the army as squire of Marquis de Lassay, was in the
campaign of Franche-Comté and at Seneffe, having now returned to Quebec
was permitted to go on a voyage of discovery in the then unknown region
where dwelt the Sioux and Assineboines.
On the 1st of September, 1678, with three Indians and three Frenchmen,
Du Lhut left Montreal for Lake Superior, and wintered at some point on
the shore of, or in the vicinity of, Lake Huron. On the 5th of April,
1679, he was in the woods, three leagues from Sault Ste. Marie, when he
wrote in the third person to Governor Frontenac: “He will not stir from
the Nadoussioux until further orders; and peace being concluded he will
set up the King’s arms, lest the English and other Europeans settled
toward California take possession of the country.”[494] On the 2d of
July, 1679, Du Lhut planted the arms of France beyond Lake Superior,
among the Isanti Sioux,[495] who dwelt at Mille Lacs, in what is now
the State of Minnesota, and then visited the Songaskitons (Sissetons)
and Houetbatons, bands of the Sioux, whose villages were one hundred
and twenty leagues beyond. Entering by way of the St. Louis River,
it would be easy, by a slight portage, to reach the Sioux village,
which was at that time on the shores of the Sandy Lake of the Upper
Mississippi.
Among those who went to the Lake Superior region at the same time as
Du Lhut, were Dupuy, Lamonde, and Pierre Moreau, alias La Taupine, who
had been with Saint Lusson at the planting of the French arms in 1671
at Sault Ste. Marie, and was trading among the Illinois when Joliet
was in that country. In the summer of 1679 La Taupine returned, and it
was rumored that he had obtained among the Ottawas in two days nine
hundred beavers. Duchesneau, Intendant of Justice, feeling that Moreau
had violated the law forbidding _coureurs des bois_ to trade with
the Indians, had him, in September, arrested at Quebec; but Moreau
produced a license from Governor Frontenac, permitting him, with his
two comrades, to go to the Ottawas, to execute his secret orders, and
so was liberated. He had not left the prison but a short time when an
officer and some soldiers came with an order from Frontenac to force
the prison, in case he were still there. In a letter to Seignelay he
writes: “It is certain, my Lord, that the said La Taupine carried
goods to the Ottawas, that his two comrades remained in the country,
apparently near Du Lhut, and that he traded there.”[496]
On the 15th of September Du Lhut had returned to Lake Superior, and at
Camanistigoya, or the Three Rivers, the site of Fort William of the
old Northwest Company, he held a conference with the Assineboines, an
alienated band of the Sioux, and other northern tribes, and persuaded
them to be at peace, and to intermarry with the Sioux. The next winter
he remained in the region near the northern boundary of Minnesota; but
in June, 1680, he determined to visit the Issati Sioux by water, as he
had before gone to their villages by land.[497] With two canoes, an
Indian as an interpreter, and four Frenchmen,—one of whom was Faffart,
who had been in the employ of La Salle at Fort Frontenac,[498]—he
entered a river eight leagues from the extremity of Lake Superior, now
called Bois Brulé, a narrow, rapid stream, then much obstructed by
fallen trees and beaver-dams. After reaching its upper waters a short
portage was made to Upper Lake St. Croix, the outlet of which was a
river, which, descending, led him to the Mississippi.
Two weeks after Du Lhut left Montreal to explore the extremity of Lake
Superior, La Salle returned from France, accompanied by the brave
officer Henry Tonty, who had lost one hand in battle, but who, with
an iron substitute for the lost member, could still be efficient in
case of a conflict. He also brought with him, beside thirty persons,
a supply of cordage, anchors, and other material to be used at Fort
Frontenac and on his proposed journey toward the Gulf of Mexico.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
After reaching Frontenac, La Motte, who had been a captain in a French
regiment, was sent in advance, with the Franciscan Hennepin and sixteen
men, to select a site for building a vessel to navigate the upper
lakes. On the 8th of January, 1679, La Salle and Tonty, late at night,
reached La Motte’s encampment at the rapids below the Falls of Niagara,
only to find him absent on a visit to the Senecas. The next day La
Salle climbed the heights, and following the portage road round the
cataract he found at the entrance of Cayuga Creek an admirable place
for a ship-yard. La Motte having returned to his encampment, with La
Salle and Tonty he visited the selected site, and Tonty was charged
with the supervision of the ship-builders.
Four days later, the keel of the projected vessel was laid, and in
May it was launched with appropriate ceremonies, and named after the
fabulous animal—the symbol of strength and swiftness,—the “Griffin,”
two of which were the supporters of the escutcheon of Count Frontenac.
Tonty, on the 22d of July, was sent forward with five men to join
fourteen others who had been ordered by La Salle to stop at the mouth
of the Detroit River. On the 7th day of August the “Griffin” spread
her sails upon her voyage to unknown waters whose depths had never
been sounded, and early on the morning of the 10th reached Tonty and
his party, who had anxiously awaited its coming, and received them on
board. On the 10th of August, the day in the calendar of the Church
of Rome devoted to the memory of the virgin Saint Clare, foundress
of the Franciscan Order of Poor Clares, the vessel entered the lake
called by the Franciscan priests after her, although now written St.
Clair. On the 27th they reached the harbor of Mackinaw,—a point on
the mainland south of the straits; and upon his landing La Salle was
greatly surprised to find there a number of those whom he had sent, at
the close of the last year, to trade for his benefit with the Illinois.
Their excuse for their unfaithfulness was credence in a report that
La Salle was a visionary, and that his vessel would never arrive at
Mackinaw. Four of the deserters were arrested. La Salle, learning that
two more—Hemant and Roussel, or Roussellière—were at Sault Ste.
Marie, sent Tonty on the 29th with six men to take them into custody.
While the lieutenant was absent on this errand, La Salle lifted his
anchor and set sail for the Grand Bay, now Green Bay, where he found
among the Pottawattamies still others of those whom he had sent to the
Illinois, and who had collected furs to the value of twelve thousand
livres. From this point he determined to pursue his journey southward
in a canoe, and to send back the “Griffin” with the peltries here
collected. On the 18th of September the ship—in charge of the pilot,
a supercargo, and five sailors—sailed for the magazine at the end of
Lake Erie, but it never came to Mackinaw. Some Indians said it had
been wrecked, but there was never any certain information obtained. A
Pawnee lad, fourteen or fifteen years of age, who was a prisoner among
the Indians near a post established among the Illinois, reported that
the pilot of the “Griffin” had been seen among the Missouri tribes, and
that he had ascended the Mississippi, with four others, in two canoes,
with goods stolen from the ship, and some hand-grenades. It was the
intention of this party to join Du Lhut, and if they could not find
him, to push on to the English on Hudson’s Bay. Meeting some hostile
Indians, a fight occurred, and all the Frenchmen were killed but the
pilot and another, who were sold as prisoners to the Missouri Indians.
In the chapter on the exploration of the lakes, it is only necessary to
allude to that portion of La Salle’s expedition which pertains to this
region.
After La Salle had established Fort Crèvecœur among the Illinois, on
the 29th of February, 1680, he sent Michel Accault (often spelt Ako) on
a trading and exploring expedition to the Upper Mississippi. He took
with him Anthony Augelle, called the Picard, and the Franciscan priest
Louis Hennepin, in a canoe, with goods valued at about a thousand
livres. In ascending the Mississippi the party was hindered by ice near
the mouth of the Illinois River until the 12th of March, when they
resumed their voyage. Following the windings of the Mississippi, La
Salle mentions in a letter written on the 22d of August, 1682, at Fort
Frontenac,[499] that they passed a tributary from the east called by
the Sioux Meschetz Odéba,[500] now called Wisconsin, and twenty-three
or twenty-four leagues above they saw the Black River, called by the
Sioux Chabadeba.[501] About the 11th of April, at three o’clock in
the afternoon, a war-party of Sioux going south was met, and Accault,
as the leader, presented the calumet,[502] and gave them some tobacco
and twenty knives. The Sioux gave up their expedition, and conducted
Accault and his companions to their villages. On the 22d of April the
isles in the Mississippi were reached, where two Sioux had been killed
by the Maskoutens, and they stopped to weep over their death, while
Accault, to assuage their grief, gave them in trade a box of goods and
twenty-four hatchets. Arriving at an enlargement of the river, about
three miles below the modern city of St. Paul, the canoes were hidden
in the marshes, and the rest of the journey to the villages of Mille
Lacs was made by land. Six weeks after they reached the villages, the
Sioux determined to descend the Mississippi on a buffalo hunt, and
Hennepin and Augelle went with the party.
When Du Lhut reached the Mississippi from Lake Superior, he found eight
cabins of Sioux, and learned that some Frenchmen were with the party
hunting below the St. Croix River. Surprised by the intelligence,
leaving two Frenchmen to guard his goods, he descended in a canoe with
his interpreter and his other two men, and on the morning of the third
day he found the hunting camp and the Franciscan Hennepin. In a letter
to Seignelay, written while on a visit in France, Du Lhut writes:—
“The want of respect which they showed to the said Reverend Father
provoked me, and this I showed them, telling them he was my brother.
And I had him placed in my canoe to come with me into the villages of
the said Nadouecioux, whither I took him; and a week after our arrival
I caused a council to be convened, exposing the ill treatment which
they had been guilty of, both to the said Reverend Father and to the
other two Frenchmen who were with him, having robbed them and carried
them off as slaves,[503] and even taken the priestly vestments of
said Reverend Father.
“I had two calumets, which they had danced to, returned, on
account of the insults which they had offered, being what they
hold most in esteem to appease matters, telling them I did not
take calumets from the people who, after they had seen me and received
my peace presents, and had been for a year always with Frenchmen,
robbed them when they went to visit them. Each one in the council
endeavored to throw the blame from himself, but their excuses did not
prevent my telling the Reverend Father Louis that he would have to
come with me towards the Outagamys [Foxes], as he did; showing him
that it would strike a blow at the French nation, in a new discovery,
to suffer an insult of this nature without manifesting resentment,
although my design was to push on to the sea in a west-northwesterly
direction, which is that which is believed to be the Red Sea [Gulf of
California], whence the Indians who had gone to war on that side gave
salt to three Frenchmen whom I had sent exploring, and who brought
me said salt, having reported to me that the Indians had told them
that it was only twenty days’ journey from where they were to find
the great lake, whose waters were worthless to drink. They had made
me believe that it would not be absolutely difficult to find it, if
permission were given to go there.
“However, I preferred to retrace my steps, exhibiting the just
indignation I felt, rather than to remain, after the violence which
they had done to the Reverend Father and the other two Frenchmen
who were with him, whom I put in my canoes and brought back to
Michelimakinak.”
It was not until some time in May, 1681, that Du Lhut arrived at
Montreal, and although he protested that his journey had only been in
the interest of discovery and of peace-making with the tribes, the
Intendant of Justice accused him of violating the King’s edict against
trading with the Indians, and Frontenac held him for a time in the
castle at Quebec, more as a friend than as a prisoner. It was but a
little while before an amnesty came from the King of France to all
suspected of being “_coureurs des Bois_,” and authorizing Governor
Frontenac to issue yearly twenty-five licenses to twenty-five canoes,
each having three men, to trade among the savages.
Duchesneau, the Intendant of Justice, still complained that the
Governor winked at illicit trade, and on the 13th of November, 1681, he
wrote to Seignelay, who had succeeded his father as Minister for the
Colonies:—
“But not content with the profits to be derived within the countries
under the King’s dominion, the desire of making money everywhere has
led the Governor, Sieurs Perrot, Boisseau, Du Lhut, and Patron, his
uncle, to send canoes loaded with peltries to the English. It is
said that sixty thousand livres’ worth has been sent thither; and
though proof of this assertion cannot be adduced, it is a notorious
report.... Trade with the English is justified every day, and all
those who have pursued it agree that beaver carried to them sells for
double what it does here, for that worth fifty-two sous, six deniers,
the pound, duty paid, brings eight livres there, and the beaver for
Russia sells there at ten livres the pound in goods.”
On grounds of public policy Frontenac in 1682 was recalled, and De la
Barre, his successor, in October of this year held a conference with
the most influential persons, among whom was Du Lhut, who afterward
sailed for France, and early in 1683[504] there wrote the letter to
Seignelay from which extracts have been made.
The Iroquois having found it profitable to carry the beavers of the
northwest to the English at Albany, determined to wage war against
the tribes of the upper Lakes, seize Mackinaw, and drive away the
French. Governor de la Barre, to thwart this scheme, in May, 1683,
sent Oliver Morrel, the Sieur de la Durantaye, with six canoes and
thirty good men, to Mackinaw, and the Chevalier de Baugy was ordered
to the fort established by La Salle on the Illinois River, in charge
of Tonty. As soon as Durantaye reached Mackinaw, he immediately sent
parties to Green Bay to take steps to humble the Pottawattamies for the
hostility exhibited toward the French. He afterward went down the west
side of Lake Michigan, and Chevalier de Baugy proceeded on the other
side, hoping to meet La Salle, who was expected to go to Mackinaw by
following the eastern shore.
Du Lhut, upon his return from France, obtained a license to trade, and
in August arrived at Mackinaw with men and goods for trading in the
Sioux country[505] by way of Green Bay. Upon the 8th of the month he
left Mackinaw with about thirty persons; and after leaving their goods
at the extremity of the Bay, they proceeded, armed for war, to the
village of the Pottawattamies, and rebuked them for the bad feelings
which they had exhibited. Some Cayuga Iroquois in the vicinity captured
five of the Wyandot Hurons that Du Lhut had sent out to reconnoitre,
but avoided the French post. “The Sieur du Lhut,” writes the Governor
to Seignelay, “who had the honor to see you at Versailles, happening to
be at that post when my people arrived, placed himself at their head,
and issued such good orders that I do not think it can be seized, as
he has employed his forces and some Indians in fortifying and placing
himself in a condition of determined defence.” Having been advised
of the retreat of the Iroquois, Du Lhut proceeded toward the north
to execute his design of stopping English trade in that direction.
The project is referred to in a despatch of the Canadian to the Home
Government in these words: “The English of Hudson’s Bay have this year
attracted many of our northern Indians, who for this reason have not
come to trade to Montreal. When they learned by expresses sent them by
Du Lhut, on his arrival at Messilimakinak, that he was coming, they
sent him word to come quickly, and they would unite with him to prevent
all others going thither any more. The English of the Bay excite us
against the savages, whom Sieur du Lhut alone can quiet.”
Departing from his first post at Kaministigouia, the site of which
is in view of Prince Arthur’s Landing, he found his way between many
isles, varied and picturesque, to a river on the north shore of
Lake Superior leading to Lake Nepigon (Alepimigon). Passing to the
northeastern extremity, he built a post on a stream connecting with the
waters of the Hudson’s Bay, called after a family name, La Tourette.
He returned the next year, if not to Montreal, certainly to Mackinaw.
Keweenaw by this time had become a well-known resort of traders; and in
its vicinity, in the summer of 1683, two Frenchmen, Colin Berthot and
Jacques Le Maire, had been surprised by Indians, robbed and murdered.
While Du Lhut was at Mackinaw, on the 24th of October, he was told that
an accomplice, named Folle Avoine, had arrived at Sault Ste. Marie with
fifteen Ojibway families who had fled from Chagouamigon Bay, fearing
retaliation for an attack which they had made upon the Sioux during the
last spring. There were only twelve Frenchmen at the Sault at the time,
and they felt too weak, without aid, to make an arrest of Folle Avoine.
At the dawn of the next day after the information was received, Du Lhut
embarked with six Frenchmen to seize the murderer, and he also gave a
seat in his canoe to the Jesuit missionary, Engelran. When within a
league of the post at the Sault, he left the canoe, and with Engelran
and the Chevalier de Fourcille, on foot, went through the woods to the
mission-house, and the remaining four—Baribaud, Le Mere, La Fortune,
and Maçons—proceeded with the canoe.
Du Lhut, upon his arrival, immediately ordered the arrest of the
accused, and placed him under a guard of six men; then calling a
council, he told the Indians that those guilty of the murder must be
punished. But they, hoping to exculpate the prisoner, said that the
murder had been committed by one Achiganaga and his sons. Peré had
been sent to Keweenaw to find Achiganaga and his children, and when
he arrested them they acknowledged their guilt, and told him that the
goods they had stolen were hidden in certain places. The powder and
tobacco were found soaked in water and useless, and the bodies of the
murdered were found in holes in marshy ground, covered with branches
of trees to prevent them from floating. The goods not damaged were
sold at Keweenaw, to the highest bidder among the traders, for eleven
hundred livres, to be paid in beavers to M. de la Chesnaye. On the 24th
of November Peré, at ten o’clock at night, came and told Du Lhut that
he had found eighteen Frenchmen at Keweenaw, and that he had brought
down as prisoners Achiganaga and sons, and had left them under a guard
of twelve Frenchmen at a point twelve leagues from the Sault. The
next day, at dawn, he went back, and at two o’clock in the afternoon
returned with the prisoners, who were placed in a room in the house
where Du Lhut was, and watched by a strong guard, and not allowed to
converse with each other.
On the 26th a council was held. Folle Avoine was allowed two of his
relatives to defend him, and the same privilege was accorded to
the others. He was interrogated, and his answers taken in writing,
when they were read to him, and inquiry made whether the record was
correct. He being removed, Achiganaga was introduced, and in like
manner questioned; and then his sons. The Indians watched the judicial
examination with silent interest, and the chiefs at length said to the
prisoners: “It is enough! You accuse yourselves; the French are masters
of your bodies.”
On the 29th all the French at the place were called together. The
answers to the interrogatories by the prisoners were read, and then by
vote it was unanimously decided that they were guilty and ought to die.
As the traders at Keweenaw desired all possible leniency to be shown,
Du Lhut decided to execute only two,—man for man, for those murdered;
and in this opinion he was sustained by De la Tour, the Superior of
the Jesuit missionaries at the Sault. Folle Avoine and the eldest of
Achiganaga’s sons were selected. Du Lhut writes: “I then returned to
the cabin of Brochet [a chief], with Mess’rs Boisguillot, Peré, De
Repentigny, De Manthet, De la Ferte, and Maçons, where were all the
chiefs of the Outawas du Sable, Outawas Sinagos, Sauteurs, D’Achiliny,
a part of the Hurons, and Oumamens, chief of the Amikoys. I informed
them of our decision; ... that the Frenchmen having been killed by the
different tribes, one of each must die; and that the same death they
had caused the French to suffer they must also suffer.” The Jesuit
Fathers then proceeded to baptize the prisoners, in the belief of the
Church of Rome that by the external application of water they might
become citizens of the kingdom of heaven. One hour later, a procession
was formed of forty-two Frenchmen, with Du Lhut at their head, and
the prisoners were taken to a hill, and in the sight of four hundred
Indians the two murderers were shot.
To Du Lhut must always be given the credit of being the first in the
distant West, at the outlet of Lake Superior, to exhibit the majesty of
law, under the forms of the French code. While some of the timid and
prejudiced, in Canada and France, condemned his course as harsh and
impolitic, yet, as the enforcer of a respect for life, he was upheld by
the more thoughtful and reasonable.[506]
During the summer of 1683 (Aug. 10), René Le Gardeur, Sieur de
Beauvais, with thirteen others who had a permit to trade among the
Illinois, departed from Mackinaw, and early in December reached the
lower end of Lake Michigan, and wintered in the valley of the Theakiki
or Kankakee River. About the 10th of March, 1684, while on their way to
Fort St. Louis, on the Illinois River, they were robbed by the Seneca
Iroquois of their seven canoes of merchandise, and after nine days
sent back to the Chicago River with only two canoes and some powder
and lead. The Indians, on the 21st, approached and besieged Fort St.
Louis,[507] which was gallantly defended by the Chevalier de Baugy and
the brave Henry Tonty, the Bras Coupé (Cut Arm), as he was called by
them, because he had lost his hand in battle.[508]
Upon the receipt of the news of this incursion, Governor de la Barre,
under a pressure from the merchants of Quebec, whose goods were
imperilled, determined to attack the Iroquois in their own country.
Orders were sent to the posts of the upper lakes for the commandants to
bring down allies to Niagara. While on his way, Du Lhut wrote to De la
Barre:—
“As I was leaving Lake Alemepigon [Nepigon], I made in June all the
presents necessary to prevent the savages carrying their beavers to
the English. I have met the Sieur de la Croix, with his two comrades,
who gave me your despatches, in which you demand that I omit no step
for the delivery of your letters to the Sieur Chouart at the River
Nelson. To carry out your instructions Monsieur Péré will have to
go himself,[509] the savages having all at that time gone into the
wilderness to gather their blueberries. The Sieur Péré will have left
in August, and during that month will have delivered your letters to
the said Sieur Chouart.[510]
“It remains for me to assure you that all the savages of the north
have great confidence in me, and this makes me promise you that before
two years have passed not a single savage will visit the English at
Hudson’s Bay. This they have all promised, and have bound themselves
thereto by the presents which I have given or caused to be given.
“The Klistinos, Assenepoualacs, Sapiniere, Opemens Dacheliny,
Outouloubys, and Tabitibis, who comprise the nations who are west of
the Sea of the North, having promised next spring to be at the fort
which I have constructed near the River à la Maune, at the end of
Lake Alemepigon,[511] and next summer I shall construct one in the
country of the Klistinos, which will be an effectual barrier.... It is
necessary, to carry out my promises, that my brother[512] should, in
the early spring [of 1685], go up again, with two canoes loaded with
powder, lead, fusils, hatchets, tobacco, and necessary presents.”
Durantaye, Du Lhut, and Nicholas Perrot left Mackinaw with one hundred
and fifty Frenchmen and about five hundred Indians[513] to join De la
Barre’s army; and they had not been six hours at Niagara, on the 6th
of September, before orders were received that their services were not
needed, as the French troops were suffering from sickness, and a truce
had been made with the Iroquois.[514] Du Lhut and the other Frenchmen
slowly returned to their posts, and when the new governor (Denonville)
arrived, he wrote to De la Durantaye at Mackinaw, and sent orders to Du
Lhut, who was at a great distance beyond, to inform him of the number
of allies he could furnish in case of a war against the Iroquois.
Nicholas Perrot, in the spring of 1685, was commissioned to go to
Green Bay and have chief command there, and of any countries he
might discover.[515] He left Montreal with twenty men, and arriving
at Green Bay, some Indians told him that they had visited countries
toward the setting sun, where they obtained the blue and green stones
suspended from their ears and noses, and that they saw horses and men
like Frenchmen,—probably the Spaniards of New Mexico; and others said
that they had obtained hatchets from persons who lived in a house
that walked on the water in the Assineboine region,—alluding to the
English established at Hudson’s Bay. At the portage between the Fox
and Wisconsin rivers thirteen Hurons were met, who were bitterly
opposed to the establishment of a post near the Sioux. After reaching
the Mississippi, Perrot sent a few Winnebagoes to notify the Aiouez
(Ioways) who roamed on the prairies beyond, that the French had
ascended the river, and that they would indicate their stopping-place
by kindling a fire. A place was found suitable for a post,[516] where
there was wood, at the foot of a high hill (_au pied d’une montagne_),
behind which there was a large prairie.[517] In eleven days a number
of Ioways arrived at the Mississippi, about twenty-five miles above,
and Perrot ascended to meet them; but as he and his men drew near, the
Indian women ran up the bluffs and hid in the woods. But twenty of
the braves met him and bore him to the chief’s lodge, and he, bending
over Perrot, began to weep, and allowed the tears to fall upon his
guest. After he had exhausted himself, the principal men continued this
wetting process. Buffalo tongues were then boiled in an earthen pot,
and after being cut into small pieces, the chief took a piece, and,
as a mark of respect, placed it in Perrot’s mouth. During the winter
Perrot traded with the Sioux; and by 1686 a post was established on the
Wisconsin shore of Lake Pepin, just above its entrance, called “Fort
St. Antoine.”[518]
Denonville discovered upon his arrival at Quebec that the policy which
De la Barre had pursued in making peace had rendered the Iroquois more
insolent, and had made the allies of the French upon the upper lakes
discontented, on account of their long and fruitless voyage to Niagara.
He therefore determined, as soon as he could gather a sufficient force,
to march into the Iroquois country[519] “and not chastise them by
halves, but if possible annihilate them.” Orders were again sent to
the posts at Mackinaw and Green Bay to prepare for another expedition
against the Seneca Iroquois. Perrot at the time he received the order
to return was among the Sioux, and his canoes had been broken by the
ice. During the summer of 1686 he visited the Miamis, sixty leagues
distant. Upon his return he perceived a great smoke, and at first
thought it was a war-party going against the Sioux. Fortunately he met
a Maskouten chief, who had been at the post to visit him, and from
him he learned that the Foxes, Kickapoos, Maskouten, and others had
determined to pillage the post, kill its inmates, and then go forward
and attack the Sioux. Hurrying on, he reached the post, and was told
that on that very day three spies had been there and discovered that
there were only six men in charge. The next day two more appeared, but
Perrot had taken the precaution to put loaded guns at the door of each
hut, and made his men frequently change their clothes. To the query of
the savage spies, “How many French were there?” the reply was, “Forty,
and that more were daily expected, who had been on a buffalo hunt, and
that the guns were loaded and the knives well sharpened.” They were
then told to go back to their camp and bring a chief of each tribe; and
that if Indians in large numbers came they would be fired at.
In accordance with this message, six chiefs presented themselves, and
after their bows and arrows had been taken from them, they were invited
to Perrot’s cabin, where he gave them something to eat and tobacco
to smoke. Looking at Perrot’s loaded guns, they asked “if he were
afraid of his children?” He answered, “No.” They continued, “Are you
displeased?” To this he said, “I have good reason to be. The Spirit has
warned me of your designs; you will take my things away and put me in
the kettle, and proceed against the Nadouaissioux. The Spirit told me
to be on my guard, and he would help me.” Astonished at these words,
they confessed he had spoken the truth. That night the chiefs slept
within the stockade, and early the next morning a part of the hostile
force came and wished to trade. Perrot had now only fifteen men, and
arresting the chiefs, he told them he would break their heads if they
did not make the Indians go away. One of the chiefs, therefore, stood
on the gate of the fort and said to the warriors: “Do not advance,
young men, the Spirit has warned Metaminens of your designs.” The
advice was followed, and the chiefs, receiving some presents, also
retired.
A few days after, Perrot returned to Green Bay in accordance with the
order of the Governor of Canada. His position toward the Jesuits at
this point was different from that of La Salle. This latter explorer
had declared that the missionaries were more anxious to convert, at
their blacksmith shop, iron into implements, to be exchanged for
beaver, than to convert souls.
After being buried in the earth for years, there has been discovered a
silver soleil or ostensorium, fifteen inches high, and weighing twenty
ounces, intended for the consecrated wafer;[520] around the oval base
of the rim is the following inscription in French: “This soleil was
given by M^r Nicholas Perrot, to the mission of St. Francis Xavier, at
the Bay of Puans, 1686.”[521]
Governor Dongan of New York, although an Irishman and Roman Catholic,
was aggressive in the interests of England, and asserted the right
of traders from Albany to go among the Indians of the Northwest. As
early as 1685 he licensed several persons, among whom was La Fontaine
Marion, a Canadian, to trade for beaver in the Ottawas country; and
their journey was successful, and created consternation at Quebec.
Governor Denonville wrote to Seignelay of the pretences of the English,
who claimed the lakes to the South Sea. His language was terse and
emphatic: “Missilimakinak is theirs. They have taken its latitude, have
been to trade there with our Outawas and Huron Indians, who received
them cordially on account of the bargains they gave by selling them
merchandise for beaver at a much higher price than we. Unfortunately we
had but very few Frenchmen there at that time.”
[Illustration: THE SOLEIL.]
A despatch on the 6th of June, 1686, was sent to Du Lhut, that he
should go and establish a post at some point on the shore of St.
Clair River, between Lake Erie and Lake Huron, which would serve as a
protection for friendly Indians, and a barrier to the English traders.
After he had built the post he was ordered to leave it in command of
a lieutenant and twenty-eight men, return to Mackinaw, and then take
thirty men more to the post, which was called Fort St. Joseph. A party
of English, under Captain Thomas Roseboome, of Albany, consisting of
twenty-nine whites and five Indians, and La Fontaine as interpreter,
in the spring of 1687 were arrested by Durantaye on Lake Huron, twenty
leagues from Mackinaw, and their _eau de vie_ (brandy) given to the
Indians.
In June, Durantaye left Mackinaw with allies for Denonville, and was
afterward followed by Perrot; and at Fort St. Joseph he met Du Lhut and
Henry Tonty, who had arrived from Fort St. Louis with a few Illinois
Indians.[522] After the united company had left this post, they met in
St. Clair River a second party of Englishmen, consisting of twenty-one
whites, six Indians, and eight prisoners, in charge of Major Patrick
Macgregory, of Albany, a native of Scotland. These were also arrested,
making about sixty then in the hands of the French.
On the 27th of June, Durantaye and associates, to the number of one
hundred and seventy Frenchmen, and about four hundred Indians, arrived
at Niagara. Sieur de la Foret, who had been with Tonty at Fort St.
Louis, on the 1st of July reported their arrival to Denonville, then at
Fort Frontenac. The Governor was pleased to hear of the capture of the
English, and in a subsequent despatch wrote: “It is certain that had
the two English detachments not been stopped and pillaged, had their
brandy and other goods entered Michillimaquina, all our Frenchmen would
have had their throats cut by a revolt of all the Hurons and Outaouas,
whose example would have been followed by all the other far nations,
in consequence of the presents which had been secretly sent to the
Indians.”
[Illustration: BOTTOM OF THE SOLEIL.]
On the 10th of July, as the Canadian and French troops entered
Irondequoit Bay, they were elated by the approach, under sail, of the
Indian allies from Mackinaw who on the 6th had left Niagara. On the
12th, the march to the Seneca village was begun; but the story of it
has been told elsewhere.[523]
The officers who came from the posts of the upper lakes were well
spoken of by Denonville. In one of his despatches he writes: “A
half-pay captaincy being vacant, I gave it to Sieur de la Durantaye,
who since I have been in this country has done good service among
the Outawas, and has been very economical in labor and expense in
executing the orders he received from me. He is a man of rank,
unfortunate in his affairs, and who, by his great assiduity at
Missillimakinak, efficiently carried out the instructions to seize the
English; he arrested one of the parties within two days’ journey of
Missillimakinak. Sieurs de Tonty and Du Lhut have acquitted themselves
very well; all would richly deserve some reward.”
After the allies had left Niagara for the scene of battle, Greysolon de
la Tourette, a brother of Du Lhut, described as “an intelligent lad,”
arrived there from Lake Nepigon, north of Lake Superior, in a canoe,
without an escort. Denonville a few weeks after wrote: “Du Lhut’s
brother, who has recently arrived from the rivers above the Lake of the
Allemepigons, assures me that he saw more than fifteen hundred persons
come to trade with him, and they were very sorry he had not sufficient
goods to satisfy them. They are of the tribes accustomed to resort to
the English at Port Nelson and River Bourbon.”[524]
The destruction of the Seneca villages having been completed, Du Lhut,
with his brave cousin Henry Tonty, returned in September to Fort
St. Joseph,[525] near the entrance of Lake Huron, garrisoned at his
own charges by _coureurs des bois_, who had in the spring sown some
bushels of Turkey wheat. The next year, to allay the irritation of the
Iroquois, Governor Denonville issued an order to abandon the fort, and
on the 27th of August the buildings were destroyed by fire.
Perrot, in 1688, was ordered to return to his post on the Upper
Mississippi, and take formal possession of the country in the King’s
name. With a party of forty men, he left Montreal to trade with the
Sioux, who, according to La Potherie, “were very distant, and could not
trade with us easily, as the other tribes and the Outagamis [Foxes]
boasted of having cut off the passage thereto.” Reaching Green Bay in
the fall of the year, Perrot was met by a deputation of Foxes, and
afterward visited their village. In the chief’s lodge there was placed
before him broiled venison, and for the rest of the French raw meat was
served; but he refused to eat, because, he said, “meat did not give him
any spirit. But he would take some when they were more reasonable.”
He then chided them for not having gone, as requested by the Governor
of Canada, on the expedition against the Senecas. Urging them to
proceed on the beaver hunt, and to fight only the Iroquois, and leaving
a few Frenchmen to trade, he proceeded toward the Sioux country.
Arriving at the portage, the ice formed some impediment, but, aided by
Pottawattamies, his men transported their goods to the Wisconsin River,
which was not frozen. Ascending the Mississippi, he proceeded to the
post which he occupied before he was summoned to fight the Senecas.
As soon as the ice left the river, in the spring of 1689, the Sioux
came down and escorted Perrot to one of their villages, where he was
received with much enthusiasm. He was carried around upon a beaver
robe, followed by a long line of warriors, each bearing a pipe and
singing. Then, taking him to the chief’s lodge, several wept over
his head, as the Ioways had done when he first visited the Upper
Mississippi. After he had left, in 1686, a Sioux chief, knowing that
few Frenchmen were at the fort, had come down with one hundred warriors
to pillage it. Of this, complaint was made by Perrot, and the guilty
leader came near being put to death by his tribe. As they were about
to leave the Sioux village, one of his men told Perrot that a box of
goods had been stolen, and he ordered a cup of water to be brought,
into which he poured some brandy. He then addressed the Indians, and
told them he would dry up their marshes if the goods were not restored,
at the same time setting on fire the brandy in the cup. The savages,
astonished, and supposing that he possessed supernatural powers, soon
detected the thief, and the goods were returned.
On the 8th of May, 1689, at the post St. Antoine, on the Wisconsin
side of Lake Pepin, a short distance above the Chippewa River, in the
presence of the Jesuit missionary, Joseph J. Marest, Boisguillot,[526]
a trader near the mouth of the Wisconsin River, Pierre Le Sueur, whose
name was afterward identified with the exploration of the Minnesota,
and a few others, Perrot took possession of the country of the rivers
St. Croix, St. Pierre, and the region of Mille Lacs, in the name of the
King of France.
When he returned to Montreal, he found a great change had occurred in
political affairs. It had become evident that the Iroquois were mere
agents of the English. The Albany traders had searched the land between
the Hudson River and Lake Erie, and had made a report that the Valley
of the Genesee was fertile and beautiful to behold, and every year an
increasing number of pale-faces wandered among the Indian villages
toward Lake Ontario. Old officers in Canada saw that their only hope
was to destroy the source of supply to the Iroquois. The question to
be determined was whether the King of France or the King of England
should control the region of the Great Lakes. Chevalier de Callières,
who had seen much service in Europe, and was in command of the troops
in Canada, insisted that decisive steps should be taken. The crisis
was hastened by the arrival of the intelligence that a revolution had
occurred in England, and that William and Mary had been acknowledged.
Callières wrote to Seignelay relative to the condition of affairs: “It
would be idle to flatter ourselves with the hope to find them improved
since the usurpation of the Prince of Orange, who will be assuredly
acknowledged by Sir Andros,[527] who is a Protestant, born in the
Island of Jersey, and by New York, the inhabitants whereof are mostly
Dutch, who planted this colony under the name of New Netherland, all of
whom are Protestant.”
He urged that the war should be carried into New York, and that a
force be sent strong enough to seize Albany, and then to move down and
capture Manhattan. “It will give his Majesty,” he said, “one of the
finest harbors in America, accessible at almost all seasons, and it
will give one of the finest countries of America, in a milder and more
fertile climate than that of Canada.” The sequel was a conflict of
drilled troops under European officers upon the borders of New England
and New York.
* * * * *
CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.
=1609-1640.=—The _Voyages_ of Champlain, as published in 1632 at
Paris, are valuable in facts pertaining to discovery along the shores
of Lake Champlain and Lake Huron; but the book is the subject of
special treatment in another chapter.[528] The _Grand Voyage_ of
Sagard[529] contains little more than what may be found in Champlain
and the _Relations_ of the Jesuit missionaries. Charlevoix mentions
that Sagard passed “some time among the Hurons, but had not time to see
things well enough, still less to verify all that was told him.”
=1640-1660.=—Benjamin Sulté, in his “Notes on Jean Nicolet,” printed
in the _Wisconsin Historical Society Collections_, viii. 188-194,[530]
shows that Nicolet, the trader, must have visited Green Bay between
July, 1634, and July, 1635, because this interval is the only period
of his life when he cannot be found on the shores of the St. Lawrence.
The recently published _History of the Discovery of the Northwest in
1634 by Jean Nicolet, with a Sketch of his Life_ by C. W. Butterfield,
Cincinnati, 1881, is a useful book, and gives evidence that Nicolet did
not descend the Wisconsin River.
The _Relations des Jésuites_ (of which a full bibliographical account
is appended to the following chapter) are important sources for the
tracing of these western explorations.
The _Relation_ of 1640 has an extract from a letter of Paul Le Jeune,
in which, after giving the names of the tribes of the region of the
Lakes, he adds that “the Sieur Nicolet, interpreter of the Algonquin
and Huron languages for Messieurs de la Nouvelle France, has given me
the names of these natives he has visited, for the most part in their
country.” This _Relation_ shows how near an approach Nicolet made to
discovering the Mississippi. See in this connection Margry’s “Les
Normands dans l’Ohio et le Mississippi,” in the _Journal général de
l’Instruction publique_, 30 Juillet, 1862. Shea, _Mississippi Valley_,
p. xx, contends that Nicolet reached the river or its affluents. The
_Relation_ of 1643 records the death of Nicolet, with some particulars
of his life.
For slight notices of the period, with dates of the departure and
arrival of traders and missionaries, there is serviceable aid to be
had from _Le Journal des Jésuites publié d’après le Manuscrit original
conservé aux Archives du Séminaire de Québec_. Par MM. les Abbés
Laverdière et Casgrain. Quebec, 1871.[531] Under date of Aug. 21, 1660,
is noted the arrival of a party of Ottawas at Montreal, who departed
the next day, and arrived at Three Rivers on the 24th, and on the 27th
left. It adds: “They were in number three hundred. Des Grosilleres
was in their company, who had gone to them the year before. They had
departed from Lake Superior with one hundred canoes; forty turned back,
and sixty arrived, loaded with peltry to the value of 200,000 livres.
At Montreal they left to the value of 50,000 livres, and brought the
rest to Three Rivers. They come in twenty-six days, but are two months
in going back. Des Grosillers wintered with the Bœuf tribe, who were
about four thousand, and belonged to the sedentary Nadouesseronons
[Dakotahs]. The Father Menar, the Father Albanel, and six other
Frenchmen went back with them.”
There appears to be no uniformity in the spelling of the name of
Groseilliers. Under May, 1662, is this entry: “I departed from Quebek
on the 3d for Three Rivers; there met Des Grosillers, who was going
to the Sea of the North. He left Quebek the night before with ten
men.” Under August, 1663, is the following: “The 5th returned those
who had been three years among the Outaoouac; nine Frenchmen went, and
seven returned. The Father Menar and his man, Jean Guerin, one of our
_donnés_, had died,—the Father Menar the 7th or 8th of August, 1661,
and Jean Guerin in September, 1662. The party arrived at Montreal on
the 25th of July, with thirty-five canoes and one hundred and fifty
men.” Of Creuxius’ _Historia_ and its relations to the missionaries’
reports, there is an account in the next chapter.
=1660-1680.=—The documents from the French archives in the Parliament
Library at Ottawa, Canada (copies in manuscript), and those translated
and printed in the _New York Col. Docs._, vol. ix., give much
information on this period; and so do the _Jesuit Relations_, and the
first volume of the Collections edited by Margry and published at Paris
in 1875.[532]
The _Mémoire sur les Mœurs, Coustumes, et Réligion des Sauvages de
l’Amérique septentrionale, par Nicolas Perrot, publié pour la première
fois par le R. P. J. Tailhan, de la Compagnie de Jésus_, Leipsic
and Paris, 1864,[533] was examined by Charlevoix one hundred and
fifty years ago, when it was in manuscript, and afforded him useful
information. It is the only work referring to the traders at the
extremity of Lake Superior between 1660 and 1670, and to the migrations
of the Hurons from the Mississippi to the Black River, and from thence
to Lake Superior. Much of interest is also derived from the _Histoire
de l’Amérique septentrionale_. Par M. de Bacqueville de la Potherie,
Paris, 1722, 4 vols.[534]
=1680-1690.=—There are differences of statements regarding the Upper
Mississippi Valley, but nevertheless much information of importance,
in the letter of La Salle from Fort Frontenac, in August, 1682,[535]
in Du Lhut’s _Mémoire_ of 1683, as printed by Harrisse,[536] and in
Hennepin’s _Description de la Louisiane_.[537]
Perrot, in the work already quoted, gives the best account of this
region from 1683 to 1690.
For the whole period of the exploration of the Great Lakes, the works
among the secondary authorities of the chief value are Charlevoix in
the last century, and Parkman in the present; but their labors are
commemorated elsewhere.
[Illustration]
EDITORIAL NOTE.
THE local historical work of the Northwest has been done in part under
the auspices of various State and sectional historical societies.
The Ohio Society, organized in 1831, became later inanimate, but was
revived in 1868, and ought to hold a more important position among
kindred bodies than it does. Mr. Baldwin has given an account of the
historical and pioneer societies of Ohio in the Western Reserve and
Northern Ohio Historical Society’s _Tracts_, no. 27; and this latter
Society, organized in 1867, with the Licking County Pioneer Historical
Society, organized the same year, and the Firelands Historical Society,
organized in 1857, have increased the historical literature of the
State by various publications elucidating in the main the settlements
of the last century. The youngest of the kindred associations, the
Historical and Geographical Society of Toledo, was begun in 1871. The
State, however, is fortunate in having an excellent _Bibliography
of Ohio_ (1880), embracing fourteen hundred titles, exclusive of
public documents, which was compiled by Peter G. Thomson; while the
_Americana_ Catalogues of Robert Clarke & Co., of Cincinnati, are the
completest booksellers’ lists of that kind which are published in
America. The _Ohio Valley Historical Series_, published by the same
house, has not as yet included any publication relating to the period
of the French claims to its territory. The earliest _History of Ohio_
is by Caleb Atwater, published in 1838; but the _History_ by James W.
Taylor—“First Period, 1650-1787”—is wholly confined to the Jesuits’
missions, the wars of the Eries and Iroquois, and the later border
warfare. (Field, _Indian Bibliography_, no. 1,535.) Henry Howe’s
_Historical Collections of Ohio_, originally issued in 1848, and again
in 1875, is a repository of facts pertaining for the most part to later
times.
* * * * *
The Historical Society of Indiana, founded in 1831, hardly justifies
its name, so far as appears from any publications. The chief _History
of Indiana_ is that by John B. Dillon, which, as originally issued in
1843, came down to 1816; but the edition of 1859 continues the record
to 1856. The first three chapters are given to the French missionaries
and the natives. (Field, _Indian Bibliography_, nos. 429, 430; Sabin,
vol. v. no. 20,172.) A popular conglomerate work is _The Illustrated
History of Indiana_, 1876, by Goodrich and Tuttle. A few local
histories touch the early period, like John Law’s _Colonial History of
Vincennes_, 1858; Wallace A. Brice’s _History of Fort Wayne_, 1868; H.
L. Hosmer’s _Early History of the Maumee Valley_, Toledo, 1858; and
H. S. Knapp’s _History of the Maumee Valley from 1680_, Toledo, 1872,
which is, however, very scant on the early history.
* * * * *
In Illinois there is no historical association to represent the State;
but the Historical Society of Chicago (begun in 1856), though suffering
the loss of its collections of seventeen thousand volumes in the great
fire of 1871, still survives.
The principal histories of the State touching the French occupation are
Henry Brown’s _History of Illinois_, New York, 1844; John Reynolds’s
_Pioneer History of Illinois_, Belleville, 1852, now become scarce;
and Davidson and Stuvé’s _Complete History of Illinois_, 1673-1873,
Springfield, 1874. The _Historical Series_ issued by Robert Fergus
pertain in large measure to Chicago, and, except J. D. Caton’s “Last of
the Illinois, and Sketch of the Potawatomies,” has, so far as printed,
little of interest earlier than the English occupation. H. H. Hurlbut’s
_Chicago Antiquities_, 1881, has an account of the early discovery of
the portage.
* * * * *
The Michigan Pioneer Society was founded in 1874, and has printed
three volumes of _Pioneer Collections_, 1877-1880. The Houghton County
Historical Society, devoting itself to the history of the region
near Lake Superior,[538] dates from 1866. It has published nothing
of importance. The State of Michigan secured, through General Cass,
while he was the minister of the United States at Paris, transcripts
of a large number of documents relating to its early history. The
Historical Society of Michigan was begun in 1828, and during the few
years following it printed several Annual Addresses and a volume of
_Transactions_. Every trace of the Society had nearly vanished, when
in 1857 it was revived. (_Historical Magazine_, i. 353.) The principal
histories of the State are James H. Lanman’s _History of Michigan_, New
York, 1839; Electra M. Sheldon’s _Early History of Michigan, from the
First Settlement to 1815_, New York, 1856, which is largely given to
an account of the Jesuit missions;[539] Charles R. Tuttle’s _General
History of Michigan_, Detroit, 1874; James Valentine Campbell’s
_Outlines of the Political History of Michigan_, Detroit, 1876. (Cf.
Clarke’s _Bibliotheca Americana_, 1878, p. 92; 1883, p. 169; Sabin,
_Dictionary_, vol. xii. p. 141.) A few of the sectional histories, like
W. P. Strickland’s _Old Mackinaw_, Philadelphia, 1860, touch slightly
the French period. A brief sketch of Mackinaw Island by Lieutenant
Dwight H. Kelton, U. S. A., includes extracts from the registers of the
Catholic Church at Mackinaw, and a list of the French commanders at
that post during the eighteenth century.
* * * * *
The Historical Society of Wisconsin was founded in 1849, and
reorganized in 1854. It has devoted itself to forming a large library,
and has published nine volumes of _Collections_, etc. (Joseph Sabin
in _American Bibliopolist_, vi. 158; Field, _Indian Bibliography_,
no. 1,688). Mr. D. S. Durrie published a bibliography of Wisconsin in
_Historical Magazine_, xvi. 29, and a tract on the _Early Outposts
of Wisconsin_ in 1873. A paper on the “First Page of the History of
Wisconsin” is in the _American Antiquarian_, April, 1878. The principal
histories of the State are I. A. Lapham’s _Wisconsin_, Milwaukee, 1846,
which lightly touches the earliest period; William R. Smith’s Wisconsin
(vol. i., historical; vol. ii., not published; vol. iii., documentary,
translating in part the _Jesuit Relations_ from the set in Harvard
College Library), Madison, 1854; and Charles R. Tuttle’s _Illustrated
History of Wisconsin_, Madison and Boston, 1875.
* * * * *
The Minnesota Historical Society was organized in 1849, and began the
publication of its _Annals_ in 1850, completing a volume in 1856.
This volume was reissued in 1872 as vol. i. of its _Collections_, and
includes papers on the origin of the name of Minnesota and the early
nomenclature of the region, and papers by Mr. Neill on the French
Voyageurs, the early Indian trade and traders,[540] and early notices
of the Dakotas. In vol. ii. Mr. Neill has a paper on “The Early French
Forts and Footprints in the Valley of the Upper Mississippi;”[541]
and Mr. A. J. Hill has examined the geography of Perrot so far as it
relates to Minnesota territory. In vol. iii. there is a bibliography
of the State; in vol. iv., a _History of St. Paul_, by John Fletcher
Williams, which but briefly touches the period of exploration. The
State Historical Society of Minnesota lost a considerable part of its
collections in the fire of March 11, 1881, which burned the State
capitol,—as detailed in its _Report_ for 1883.
The principal and sufficient account of the State’s history is
Edward D. Neill’s _History of Minnesota from the Earliest French
Explorations_, Philadelphia, 1858, which in 1883 reached an improved
fifth edition, and is supplemented by his _Minnesota Explorers and
Pioneers, 1659-1858_, published in 1881. In 1858 an edition was also
issued, of one hundred copies, on large paper, illustrated with
forty-five quarto steel plates, engraved from paintings chiefly by
Captain Seth Eastman, U. S. Army.
* * * * *
The Historical Society of Iowa was founded in 1857, and began the
publication of its _Annals_ in 1863. The principal account of the State
is C. R. Tuttle and D. S. Durrie’s _Illustrated History of Iowa_,
Chicago, 1876.
* * * * *
There are a few more general works to be noted: John W. Monette’s
_History of the Discovery and Settlement of the Valley of the
Mississippi_, New York, 1846-1848;[542] S. P. Hildreth’s _Pioneer
History of the Ohio Valley_, Cincinnati, 1848, which but cursorily
touches the French period; James H. Perkins’s _Annals of the West_,
Cincinnati, 1846, which brought ripe scholarship to the task at a
time before the scholar could have the benefit of much information
now accessible;[543] Adolphus M. Hart’s _History of the Discovery of
the Valley of the Mississippi_, Cincinnati, 1852,—a slight sketch,
as we now should deem it, but followed soon after by a more scholarly
treatment in J. G. Shea’s _Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi
Valley_, New York, 1852, to which a sequel, _Early Voyages up and
down the Mississippi_, was published in 1861, containing the voyages
of Cavelier, Saint Cosme, Le Sueur, Gravier, and Guignas, during the
last years of the century; George Gale’s _Upper Mississippi_, Chicago,
1867,—a topical treatment of the subject; and Rufus Blanchard’s
_Discovery and Conquests of the Northwest_, Chicago, 1880—the
latest general survey of the subject. Poole’s _Index to Periodical
Literature_, under the names of these several States, can often be
usefully consulted.
[Illustration: THE ROUTES OF EARLY FRENCH EXPLORATIONS.
This sketch follows a modern map given by Parkman. There is a similar
route-map given in the _Bulletin de la Soc. de Géog._, November, 1880,
accompanying a paper by M. J. Thoulet. In the above sketch the portages
are marked by dotted lines.]
JOLIET, MARQUETTE, AND LA SALLE.
HISTORICAL SOURCES AND ATTENDANT CARTOGRAPHY.
BY THE EDITOR.
THE principal sources for the cartographical part of this study are as
follows: The collection of manuscript copies[544] of maps in the French
Archives which was formed by Mr. Parkman, and which he has described in
his _La Salle_ (p. 449), and which is now in Harvard College Library;
a collection of manuscript and printed maps called _Cartographie du
Canada_, formed by Henry Harrisse in Paris, and which in 1872 passed
into the hands of Samuel L. M. Barlow, Esq., of New York, by whose
favor the Editor has had it in his possession for study; the collection
of copies made by Dr. J. G. Kohl which is now in the Library of the
State Department at Washington, and which through the kind offices of
Theodore F. Dwight, Esq., of that department, and by permission of the
Secretary of State, have been intrusted to the Editor’s temporary care;
and the collection of printed maps now in Harvard College Library,
formed mainly by Professor Ebeling nearly a hundred years ago, and
which came to that library, with all of Ebeling’s books, as a gift from
the late Colonel Israel Thorndike, in 1818.[545]
The completest printed enumeration of maps is in the section on
“Cartographie” in Harrisse’s _Notes pour servir à l’histoire ... de
la Nouvelle France, 1545-1700_, Paris, 1872, and this has served the
Editor as a convenient check-list. A special paper on “Early Maps of
Ohio and the West” constitutes no. 25 of the _Tracts_ of the Western
Reserve and Northern Ohio Historical Society. It was issued in 1875,
and has been published separately, and is the work of Mr. C. C.
Baldwin, secretary of that Society, whose own collection of maps is
described by S. D. Peet in the _American Antiquarian_, i. 21. See also
the _Transactions_ (1879) of the Minnesota Historical Society.
The main guide for the historical portion of this essay has been the
_La Salle_ of Parkman.[546]
There are in the Dépôt de la Marine in Paris two copies of a rough
sketch on parchment, showing the Great Lakes, which were apparently
made between 1640 and 1650. They have neither maker’s name nor date,
but clearly indicate a state of knowledge derived from the early
discovery of the Upper Lakes by way of the Ottawa, and before the
southern part of Lake Huron had been explored, and found to connect
with Lake Erie. The maker must have been ignorant of the knowledge, or
discredited it, which Champlain possessed in 1632 when he connected
Ontario and Huron. Indications of settlements at Montreal would place
the date of this map after 1642; and it may have embodied the current
traditions of the explorations of Brulé and Nicolet, though it omits
all indications of Lake Michigan, which Nicolet had discovered. Though
rude in many ways, it gives one of the earliest sketches of the Bras
d’Or in Cape Breton. The channel connecting the Atlantic and the St.
Lawrence, if standing for anything, must represent the Connecticut
and the Chaudière. Dr. Kohl, in a marginal note on a copy of this map
in his Washington Collection, while referring to the uninterrupted
water-way by the Ottawa, remarks on a custom, not uncommon on the early
maps, of leaving out the portages; and the same suspicion may attach
to the New England water-way here given. A note on the map gives the
distance as three hundred leagues from Gaspé to the extremity of Lake
Ontario; two hundred more to the land of the buffaloes; two hundred
additional to the region of apes and parrots; then four hundred to the
Sea of New Spain; and thence fifteen or sixteen hundred more to the
Indies. A legend in the neighborhood of Lake Superior confirms other
mention of the early discovery of copper in that region: “In the little
lake near the mountains are found pieces of copper of five and six
hundred pounds’ weight.”
[Illustration: THE OTTAWA ROUTE, 1640-1650.]
At a later day La Salle had learned, from some Senecas who visited his
post at Lachine, of a great river, rising in their country and flowing
to the sea; and, with many geographers of his day, captivated with a
promised passage to India, he preferred to believe that it emptied into
the Gulf of California.[547]
[Illustration: DOLLIER AND GALLINÉE’S EXPLORATIONS.
This is a reduced sketch of no. 1 of Mr. Parkman’s maps, which measures
30 × 50 inches. It has two titles: _Carte du Lac Ontario et des
habitations qui l’environne, ensemble les pays que Mess^{rs} Dolier et
Galiné, missionnaires du séminaire de St. Sulpice, ont parcouru_, and
_Carte du Canada et des terres decouvertes vers le lac Derié_. _Voir
la lettre du M. Talon du 10 9^{bre}, 1670._ The figures stand for the
following names and legends:—
1. C’est ici qu’ils ont un fort Bel Establissement, une belle maison,
et de grands dezerts semés de bled francois et de bled d’inde, pois et
autres graines [referring to 70].
2. Baye des Puteotamites. Il y a dix Journées de Chemin du Sault ou
sont les RR. S. PP. JJ. aux puteotamites, c’est a dire environ 150
lieues. Je n’ay entré dans cette Baye que jusques a ces Iles que J’ay
marquées.
3. Ce lac est le plus grand de tous ceux du pays.
4. C’est icy qu’estoit une pierre qu’avoit tres peu de figures
d’hommes, qui les Iroquois tenoient pour un grand Cap^{ne}, et a qui
ils faisoient des sacrifices lorsqu’ils passoient par icy pour aller
en guerre. Nous l’avons mis en pieces et jetté à l’eau.
5. Lac Derié, je non marque que ce que j’en ay veu en attendant que je
voie le reste.
6. Grandes prairies.
7. Presqu’isle du lac D’Erie.
8. Prairies. Terres excellentes.
9. C’est icy que nous avons hyverne en le plus beau lieu que j’aye yen
en Canada, pour l’abondance des arbres, fruittiers, aces, raisins, qui
sy grande qu’on en pourroit vivre en faisant provision, grand chasse
de serfs, Bisches, Ours, Schenontons, Chats, Sauvages, et Castors.
10. Grand chasse a ce petit misseau.
11. Toutes ces costes sont extrem^t pierreuses et ne laissent pas d’y
avoir des bestes.
12. C’est dans cette Baye que estoit autrefois le pays de Hurons
lorsqu’ils furent defaits par les Iroquois, et ou les RR. PP. Jesuites
estoient fort bien establis.
13. Je n’ay point vu cette ance ou estoit autrefois le pays des
Hurons, mais je vois qu’elle est encore plus profonde que je ne la
desseins, et c’est icy apparamment qu’aboutit le chemin par ou Mr.
Perray a passé.
14. L’embouchure de cette rivière fort difficile a trouver a neanmoins
la petite isle qui la precede est fort remarquable par la grande
quantité de ces isles de roche dont elle est composée qui deboutent
fort loin au large.
17. Chasse d’originaux Bans ces isles.
18. Amikoue.
20. Portage trainage.
21. Sault. C’est dans cette Ance que les Nipissiriniens placent pour
l’ordinaire leur village. Portage, 600 pas.
22. Lac des Nipissiriniens ou des Sorciers.
24. Rivier des vases.
24-25. In this space various portages are marked.
26. On entre icy dans la grande Riviere.
27. Mataouan.
28. C’est d’icy que Mr. Perray et sa Compagnie ont campé pour entrer
dans le lac des Hurons, quand j’aurray vu le passage je le donneray
mais toujours dit-on que le chemin est fort beau, et c’est icy que
s’establiront les missionnaires de St. Sulpice.
29. Ganatse kiagourif.
30. Village de tanaouaoua.
31. C’est a ce village qu’estoit autrefois Neutre. Grand partie sesche
par tout icy et tout le long de la R. rapide.
32. Bonne Terre.
33. Grand chasse. Prairies siches.
34. R. Rapide ou de Tinaatoua.
35. Il y a le long de ces ances quantité de petits lacs separés
seulement du grand par des Chaussées de Sable. C’est dans ces lacs que
les Sanountounans prennent quantité de poisson.
36. Sault qui tombe au rapport des Sauvages de plus de 200 pieds de
haut.
37. Excellente terre.
38. Petit lac d’Erie.
39. Sault ou il y a grande pesche de barbues.
40. Gaskounchiakons.
41. Excellente terre. Village du R. P. Fremin. 4 villages des
Sonountouans, les des grands sont chacun de 100 Cabannes et les autres
d’environ 20 a 25 sans aucune fortification non pas mesme naturelle;
il faut mesme qu’ils aillent chercher l’eau fort loing.
42. Il y a de l’alun au pied de cette montagne fortaine de bitume.
Excellente terre.
43. R. des Amandes et doneiout. R. des Oiogouins.
44. Abondance de gibier dans cette riviere. Quoyqu’il ne paroisse icy
que des Sables sur le bord du lac. Ces terres ne laissent pas d’etre
bonnes dans la profondeur. R. Denon taché.
45. Kahengouetta. Kaouemounioun.
46. Otondiata.
47. Pesche d’anguille tout au travers de la riviere.
48. Islets de roches.
49. Depuis icy Jusques a Otondiata il y a de forts rapides a toutes
les pointes, et des remouils dans toutes les ances.
50. Lac St. Francois.
51. Habitation des RR. PP. Jesuites.
52. La Madelaine.
53. Lac St. Louis.
54. Habitation du Montreal.
55. Lac des 2 montagnes.
56. Belle terre. Terres nayées. Bonnes terres. Il faut faire 5
portages du Costé du Nord portage pour monter au lac St. François,
mais du costé du sud on n’en fait qu’un.
57. Long sault.
58. Ces 2 rivieres en tombant dans la grande font 2 belles nappes,
portage 50 pas.
59. L’estoit icy qu’estoit autrefois la petite nation Algonquine.
60. Portage du sault de la Chaudiere 300 pas.
61. L’estoit icy ou estoit le fameus Borgne de l’isle dans les
relations des RR. PP. Jesuites.
62. Le grand portage du sault des Calumets est de ce costé, pour
l’eviter nous prismes de l’autre coste.
63. Il faut faire 5 portages de ce costé icy d’environ 100 pas chacun.
64. Portage apellé des alumettes 200 pas.
65. Tres grande chasse d’originaux autour de ce petit lac.
66. On dit que cette branche de la grande Riviere va aux trois
rivières.
67. Grand rapides.
68. Portage 200 pas.
69. Lac Superieur.
70. Fort des S. RR^{nds} PP. Jesuites. Sauteurs.
71. Anipich.
72. R. de Tessalon. Mississague.
There are in the Kohl Collection, in the Department of State, two maps
of Lake Ontario, of 1666, the original of one of which is credited to
the Dépôt de la Marine.]
He was determined to track it; and gaining some money by selling
his grant at Lachine, and procuring the encouragement of Talon and
Courcelles, he formed an alliance for the journey with two priests of
the Seminary at Montreal, Dollier de Casson and Galinée, who were about
going westward on a missionary undertaking. La Salle started with them
on the 6th of July, 1669, with some followers, and a party of Senecas
as guides. The savages led them across Lake Ontario to a point on the
southern shore nearest to their villages, which the party visited in
the hope of securing other guides to the great river of which they
were in search. Failing in this, they made their way to the western
extremity of the lake, where they fell in with Joliet, as mentioned in
the preceding chapter. La Salle now learned Joliet’s route; but he was
not convinced that it opened to him the readiest way to the great river
of the Indians, though the Sulpitians were resolved to take Joliet’s
route north of Lake Erie. When these priests returned to Montreal, in
June, 1670, they brought back little of consequence, except the data
to make the earliest map which we have of the Upper Lakes, and of which
a sketch is given herewith.
[Illustration]
This map of Galinée, says Parkman,[548] was the earliest attempt
after Champlain to portray the great lakes. Faillon, who gives a
reproduction of this map,[549] says it is preserved in the Archives
of the Marine at Paris; but Harrisse[550] could not find it there.
There is a copy of it, made in 1856 from the original at Paris, in
the Library of Parliament at Ottawa.[551] Faillon[552] gives much
detail of the journey, for the Sulpitians were his heroes; and
Talon made a report;[553] but the main source of our information is
Galinée’s Journal, which is printed, with other papers appertaining, by
Margry,[554] and by the Abbé Verreau.[555]
The Michigan peninsula, which Galinée had failed to comprehend, is
fully brought out in the map of Lake Superior which accompanies the
Jesuit _Relation_ of 1670-1671.[556] Mr. Parkman is inclined to
consider a manuscript map without title or date, but called in the
annexed sketch “The Lakes and the Mississippi” (from a copy in the
Parkman Collection), as showing “the earliest representation of the
upper Mississippi, based perhaps on the reports of the Indians.”[557]
He calls it the work of the Jesuits, whose stations are marked on it
by crosses. It seems however to be posterior to the time when Joliet
gave the name Colbert to the Mississippi.
[Illustration: THE LAKES AND THE MISSISSIPPI.
This map bears legends or names corresponding to the following key:
1. Les Kilistinouk disent avoir veu un grand naviere qui hiverna à
l’embouchure de ce fleuve; ils auroient fait une maison d’un coste et
de l’autre un fort de bois. 2. Assinepouelak. 3. Oumounsounick. 4.
Ounaouantagouk. 5. Chiligouek. 6. Outilibik. 7. Noupining-dachirinouek.
8. Ouchkioutoulibik. 9. Missisaking-dachiri-nouek. 10. Outaouak. 11.
Michilimakinak. 12. Baye des Puans. 13. Oumalouminek. 14. Outagamik.
15. Nadouessi. 16. Icy mourut le P. Meynard. 17. Kikabou. 18.
Ouenebegouk. 19. Pouteoutamic. 20. Ousakie. 21. Illinouek Kachkachki.
22. Mouingouea. 23. Ouchachai. 24. Ouemissirita. 25. Chaboussioua.
26. Pelissiak. 27. Monsoupale. 28. Paniassa. 29. Taaleousa. 30.
Metchagamea. 31. Akenza. 32. Matorea. 33. Tamikoua. 34. Ganiassa. 35.
Minou. 36. Kachkinouba.]
What La Salle did after parting with the Sulpitians in 1669 is a
question over which there has been much dispute. The absence of any
definite knowledge of his movements for the next two years leaves ample
room for conjecture, and Margry believes that maps which he made of
his wanderings in this interval were in existence up to the middle of
the last century. It is from statements regarding such maps given in
a letter of an aged niece of La Salle in 1756, as well as from other
data, that Margry has endeavored to place within these two years what
he supposes to have been a successful attempt on La Salle’s part to
reach the Great River of the West. If an anonymous paper (“Histoire de
Monsieur de la Salle”) published by Margry[558] is to be believed, La
Salle told the writer of it in Paris,—seemingly in 1678,—that after
leaving Galinée he went to Onondaga (?), where he got guides, and
descending a stream, reached the Ohio (?), and went down that river.
How far? Margry thinks that he reached the Mississippi: Parkman demurs,
and claims that the story will not bear out the theory that he ever
reached the mouth of the Ohio; but it seems probable that he reached
the rapids at Louisville, and that from this point he retraced his
steps alone, his men having abandoned him to seek the Dutch and English
settlements. Parkman finds enough amid the geographical confusions of
this “Histoire” to think that upon the whole the paper agrees with La
Salle’s memorial to Frontenac in 1677, in which he claimed to have
discovered the Ohio and to have coursed it to the rapids, and that it
confirms the statements which Joliet has attached to the Ohio in his
maps, to the effect that it was by this stream La Salle went, “pour
aller dans le Mexique.”[559]
The same “Histoire” also represents that in the following year (1671)
La Salle took the course in which he had refused to follow Galinée, and
entering Lake Michigan, found the Chicago portage, and descending the
Illinois, reached the Mississippi. This descent Parkman is constrained
to reject, mainly for the reason that from 1673 to 1678 Joliet’s claim
to the discovery of the Mississippi was a notorious one, believed
by Frontenac and by all others, and that there was no reason why La
Salle for eight years should have concealed any prior knowledge. The
discrediting of this claim is made almost, if not quite, conclusive by
no mention being made of such discovery in the memorial of La Salle’s
kindred to the King for compensation for his services, and by the
virtual admission of La Salle’s friends of the priority of Joliet’s
discovery in a memorial to Seignelay, which Margry also prints.[560]
In 1672 some Indians from the West had told Marquette at the St.
Esprit mission of a great river which they had crossed. Reports of it
also came about the same time to Allouez and Dablon, who were at work
establishing a mission at Green Bay; and in the _Relation_ of 1672 the
hope of being able to reach this Mississippi water is expressed.
Frontenac on his arrival felt that the plan of pushing the actual
possession of France beyond the lakes was the first thing to be
accomplished, and Talon, as we have seen, on leaving for France
recommended Joliet[561] as the man best suited to do it. Jacques
Marquette joined him at Point St. Ignace. The Jesuit was eight years
the senior of the fur-trader, and of a good family from the North of
France.
[Illustration: JOLIET’S MAP, 1673-1674.
Key: 1. Les sauvages habitent cette isle. 2. Sauvages de la mer. 3.
Kilistinons. 4. Assiniboels. 5. Madouesseou. 6. Nations du nord. 7. Lac
Supérieur. 8. Le Sault St. Marie. 9. Missilimakinak. 10. Kaintotan.
11. Lac Huron. 12. Nipissing. 13. Mataouan. 14. Tous les poincts sont
des rapides. 15. Les trois rivieres. 16. Tadoussac. 17. Le Saguenay.
18. Le Fleuve de St. Laurent. 20. Montroyal. 21. Fort de Frontenac.
22. Lac Frontenac ou Ontario. 24. Sault, Portage de demi lieue. 25.
Lac Erie. 26. Lac des Illinois ou Missihiganin. 27. Cuivre. 28.
Kaure. 29. Baye des Puans. 30. Puans. 31. Maskoutins. 32. Portage.
33. Riviere Miskonsing. 34. Mines de fer. 35. Riviere de Buade. 36.
Kitchigamin. 37. Ouaouiatanox. 38. Paoutet, Maha, Pana, Atontanka,
Illinois, Peouarea, 300 Cabanes, 180 Canots de bois de 50 pieds de
long. 39. Minongio, Pani, Ouchagé, Kansa, Messouni. 40. La Frontenacie.
41. Pierres Sanguines. 42. Kachkachkia. 43. Salpetre. 44. Riviere de
la Divine ou l’Outrelaize. 45. Riv. Ouabouskigou. 46. Kaskinanka,
Ouabanghihasla, Malohah. 47. Mines de fer; Chouanons, terres eiseléez,
Aganatchi. 48. Akansea sauvages. 49. Mounsoupria. 50. Apistonga. 51.
Tapensa sauvages. 52 and 53 (going up the stream which is called
Riviere Basire). Atatiosi, Matora, Akowita, Imamoueta, Papikaha,
Tanikoua, Aiahichi, Pauiassa. 54. Europeans. 55. Cap de la Floride. 56.
Mer Vermeille, ou est la Califournie, par ou on peut aller au Perou, au
Japon, et à la Chine.]
Their course has been sketched in the preceding chapter. They seemed
to have reached a conviction that the Great River flowed into the Gulf
of Mexico. Their return was by the Illinois River and the Chicag
portage.[562] During the four months of their absence, says Parkman,
they had paddled their canoes somewhat more than two thousand five
hundred miles.
While Marquette remained at the mission Joliet returned to Quebec. What
Joliet contributed to the history of this discovery can be found in a
letter on his map, later to be given in fac-simile; a letter dated Oct.
10, 1674, given by Harrisse;[563] the letter of Frontenac announcing
the discovery, which must have been derived from Joliet,[564] and the
oral accounts which Joliet gave to the writer of the “Détails sur le
voyage de Louis Joliet; and a Relation de la descouverte de plusieurs
pays situez au midi de la Nouvelle France, faite en 1673,” both of
which are printed by Margry.[565]
Within a few years there has been produced a map which seems to have
been made by Joliet immediately after his return to Montreal. This
would make it the earliest map of the Mississippi based on actual
knowledge, and the first of a series accredited to Joliet. It is called
_Nouvelle découverte de plusieurs nations dans la Nouvelle France
en l’année 1673 et 1674_. Gabriel Gravier first made this map known
through an _Étude sur une carte inconnue; la première dressée par L.
Joliet en 1674, après son exploration du Mississippi auec Jacques
Marquette en 1673_.[566] A sketch of it, with a key, is given herewith.
The tablet in the sketch marks the position of Joliet’s letter to
Frontenac, of which a reduced fac-simile is also annexed.
“In this epistle,” says Mr. Neill, “Joliet mentions that he had
presented a map showing the situation of the Lakes upon which there is
navigation for more than 1,200 leagues from east to west, and that he
had given to the great river beyond the Lakes, which he had discovered
in the years 1673-1674, the designation of Buade, the family name of
Frontenac.[567] He adds a glowing description of the prairies, the
groves, and the forests,” and writes of the quail (_cailles_) in the
fields and the parrot (_perroquet_) in the woods. He concludes his
communication as follows: “By one of the large rivers which comes from
the west and empties into the River Buade, one will find a route to the
Red Sea” [Mer vermeille, _i. e._ Gulf of California].
[Illustration]
“I saw a village which was not more than five days’ journey from a
tribe which traded with the tribes of California;[568] if I had arrived
two days before, I could have conversed with those who had come from
thence, and had brought four hatchets as a present. You would have seen
a description of these things in my Journal, if the success which had
accompanied me during the voyage had not failed me a quarter of an hour
before arriving at the place from which I had departed. I had escaped
the dangers from savages, I had passed forty-two rapids, and was about
to land with complete joy at the success of so long and difficult an
enterprise, when, after all dangers seemed past, my canoe turned over.
I lost two men and my box in sight of the first French settlement,
which I had left almost two years before. Nothing remains to me but my
life, and the wish to employ it in any service you may please.” This
Report was sent to France in November, 1674.
There is in Mr. Barlow’s Collection a large map (27 × 40 inches), which
is held by Dr. Shea and General Clarke to be a copy of the original
Joliet Map, with the Ohio marked in by a later and less skilful hand. A
sketch of it is annexed as “Joliet’s Larger Map.”
A copy of what is known as “Joliet’s Smaller Map” is also in the Barlow
Collection, and from it the annexed sketch has been made. This map
is called _Carte de la descouverte du S^r Jolliet, ou l’on voit la
communication du Fleuve St. Laurens avec les Lacs Frontenac, Erie, Lac
des Hurons, et Illinois ... au bout duquel on va joindre la Rivière
divine par un portage de mille pas qui tombe dans la Rivière Colbert et
se descharge dans le Sein Mexique_. Though evidently founded in part on
the Jesuits’ map of Lake Superior, it was an improvement upon it, and
was inscribed with a letter addressed to Frontenac. The Valley of the
Mississippi is called _Colbertie_; the Ohio is marked as the course of
La Salle’s route to the Gulf;[569] the Wisconsin is made the route of
Joliet.
Mr. Parkman describes another map, anonymous, but “indicating a greatly
increased knowledge of the country.” It marks the Ohio as a river
descended by La Salle, but it does not give the Mississippi.[570]
Harrisse found in the Archives of the Marine a map which he thought to
be a part of the same described by Parkman, and this was made by Joliet
himself later than 1674.
There is in the Parkman Collection another map ascribed to Joliet,
and called in the sketch given herewith “Joliet’s carte générale,”
which Parkman thinks was an early work (in the drafting, at least) of
the engineer Franquelin. It is signed _Johannes Ludovicus Franquelin
pinxit_; but it is a question what this implies. Harrisse[571] thinks
that Franquelin is the author, and places it under 1681. Gravier
holds it to imply simply Franquelin’s drafting, and affirms that it
corresponds closely with a map signed by Joliet, which has already been
mentioned as his earliest. Mr. Neill says of this map that it “is the
first attempt to fix the position of the nations north of the Wisconsin
and west of Lake Superior. The Wisconsin is called Miskous, perhaps
intended for Miskons; and the Ohio is marked ‘Ouaboustikou.’ On the
upper Mississippi are the names of the following tribes: The ‘Siou,’
around what is now called the Mille Lacs region, the original home
of the Sioux of the Lakes, or Eastern Sioux; the Ihanctoua, Pintoüa,
Napapatou, Ouapikouti, Chaiena, Agatomitou, Ousilloua, Alimouspigoiak.
The Ihanctoua and Ouapikouti are two divisions of the Sioux, now known
as Yanktons and Wahpekootays. The Chaiena were allies of the Sioux,
and hunted at that time in the valley of the Red River of the North.
The word in the Sioux means ‘people of another language,’ and the
_voyageurs_ called them Cheyennes.”
[Illustration: WESTERN PORTION OF JOLIET’S LARGER MAP (1674).
A reduced sketch of the copy in the Barlow Collection. The river marked
“Route du Sieur de la Salle” is seemingly drawn in by a later hand, and
the stream is without the coloring given to the other rivers. In its
course, too, it runs athwart the vignette surrounding the scale at the
bottom of the map, as if added after that was made. It is Harrisse’s
no. 203.]
[Illustration: EASTERN PORTION OF JOLIET’S LARGER MAP (1674).]
Mention may be made in passing of a small map within an ornamented
border, and detailing the results of these explorations, which bears
a Dutch title in the vignette, and another along the bottom in
French, as follows: _Pays et peuple decouverts en 1673 dans la partie
septentrionale de l’Amerique par P. Marquette et Joliet, suivant la
description qu’ils en ont faite, rectifiée sur diverses observations
posterieures de nouveau mis en jour par Pierre Vander Aa à Leide_.
[Illustration: JOLIET’S SMALLER MAP.
This is Harrisse’s no. 204. The original is in the Archives of the
Marine at Paris; cf. Library of Parliament _Catalogue_, 1858, p. 1615;
Parkman’s _La Salle_, p. 453.]
[Illustration: BASIN OF THE GREAT LAKES.
A reduced sketch of no. 3 of the Parkman maps, which measures 30 × 44
inches. It is without title or maker’s name, and the figures stand for
the names and legends as given below:
1. Pays des Outaouacs qui habitent dans les forets.
2. Par cette riviere on va aus assinepoüalac a 150 lieues vers le
Noreouest ou il y a beaucoup de Castor.
3. Isle Minong ou l’on croyoit que fust la mine de Cuivre.
4. Par cette riviere on va pays des nadouessien a 60 lieues au
couchant. Ils ont 15 villages et sont fort belligueux et la terreur de
ces contrées.
5. Pointe du St. Esprit.
6. R. Nantounagan.
7. Autrefois les restes de la Nation Huronne sestoient refugiez icy et
les Jesuites y avoient une mission. Maintenant les Nadouessien ostants
aus Hurons la liberté de chasser aus castors, ses sauvages ont quitté
et les Jesuites les ont suivie.
8. Toutes ses nations qui se sont retirées en ces pays par terreur des
Iroquois ont une tres grande quantité de Castors.
9. Nation et riviere des Oumalouminec, ou de la folle auoine.
10. Outagamis.
11. R. Mataban.
12. Isles ou les Hurons se refugierent apres la destruction de leur
nation par les Iroquois.
13. Les pp. Jesuites ont icy une mission.
14. Kakaling rapide de trois lieues de longuerer.
15. Kitchigamenqué, ou lac St. Francois.
16. Pouteatamis.
17. Oumanis.
18. Maskoutens ou Nation du feu.
19. Riviere de la Divine.
20. Les plus grands navires peuvent venir de la decharge du lac Erie
dans le lac frontenac jusques icy et de ce marais ou ils peuvent entrer
il n y a que mille pas de distance jusqu’a la riviere de la Divine qui
les peut porter jusqu’a la riviere Colbert et de la golfe de Mexique.
21. Riviere Ohio ainsy apellée par les Iroquois a cause de sa beauté
par ou le Sr. de la Salle est descendu.
22. Les Illinois.
23. Raye des Kentayentoga.
24. Les Chaoüenons.
25. Cette riviere baigne un fort beau pays ou l’on trouvé des pommes,
des grenades, des raisins et d’autres fruits sauvages. Le Pays est
decouvert pour la plus part, y ayant seulement des bois d’espace en
espace. Les Iroquois ont détruit la plus grande partie des habitans
dont on voit encore quelques restes.
26. Tout ce pays est celuy qui est aus Environs du lac Teiochariontiong
est decouvert. L’hiver y est moderé et court; les fruits y viennent en
abondance; les bœufs sauvages, poules dinde et toute sorte de gibier
s’y trouvent en quantité et il y a encore force castor.
27. Baye de Sikonam.
28. Les Tionontateronons.
29. Detroit de Missilimakinac.
30. Missilimakinac mission des Jesuites. Detroit par ou le lac des
Illinois communique avec celuy des Hurons, par ou passent les sauvages
du midy quand ils vont au Montreal chargez de Castors.
31. Sault de Ste. Marie. Ce sault est un Canal de demie lieue de
largeur par lequel le lac Superieur se decharge dans le lac Huron.
32. Dans ce lac on trouve plusieurs morceaux de cuivre rouge de rozette
tres pure. Outakouaminan.
33. Sauteurs. Sauvages qui habitent aus environs du Sault Ste. Marie.
34. Bagonache.
35. Gens des Torres. Toutes ces nations vivent de chasse dans les bois
sans villages, et la plus part sans cultivee la terre, se trouvans
seulement a de certains rendezvous de festes et de foire de temps en
temps.
36. Kilistinons.
37. Les Alemepigon.
38. Ekaentoton Isle.
39. Lieu de l’assemblée de tous les sauvages allans en traitte a
Montreal.
40. Les Kreiss.
41. Cette riviere vient du lac Nipissing. R. des Francois.
42. Les Amicoue.
43. Les Missisaghé.
44. Lac Skekoven ou Nipissing.
45. Sorciers.
46. A cet endroit il y a plusieurs petits marais par ou l’on va dans le
lac Nipissing en portant plusieurs fois les canots.
47. Nipissiens.
48. Sault au talc Mataouan.
49. Sault au lieure. Sault aux Allumettes. Isle du Borgne.
50. Sault des Calumets.
51. Riviere des Outaouacs ou des Hurons.
52. Les Sauvages Loups et Iroquois tirent d’icy la plus grande partie
du Castor qu’ils portent aus Anglois et aus Hollandois.
53. Cette rivière sort du lac Taronto et se jette dans le lac Huron.
54. Chemin par ou les Iroquois vont aus Outaoüacs, qu’ils auroient mené
trafiquer a la Nouvelle Hollande si le fort de Frontenac n’eust ésté
basti sur leur route.
55, 56. Villages des Iroquois dont quantité s’habituent de ce côté
depuis peu. Teyoyagon, Ganatchekiagon, Ganevaské, Kentsio.
57. Canal par ou le lac des Hurons se decharge dans le lac Erie.
58. Tsiketo ou lac de la Chaudiere.
59. Atiragenrega, nation detruite.
60. Antouaronons, nation detruite.
61. Niagagarega, nation detruite. Chute haute de 120 toises par ou le
lac Erie tombe dans le lac Frontenac.
62. Les Iroquois font leurs pesches dans tous les marais ou etangs qui
bordent ce lac, d’ou ils tirent leur principale subsistance.
63. Ka Kouagoga, nation detruite.
64. Negateca fontaine.
65. Tsonontouaeronons.
66. Goyogouenronons.
67. Les environs de ce lac et l’extremité occidentale du lac Frontenac
sont infestes de gantastogeronons, ce qui en eloigne les Iroquois.
68. Ce lac n’est pas le lac Erie, comme on le nomme ordinnairement.
Erie est une partie de la Baye de Chesapeack dans la Virginie, ou les
Eriechronons ont toujours demeuré.
69. Riviere Ohio, ainsy dite a cause de sa beauté.
70. Lac Onia-sont.
71. Les Oniasont-Keronons.
72. Riviere qui se rend dans la baye de Chesapeack.
73. Cahihonoüaghé, lieu on la plus part des Iroquois et des Loups
debarquent pour aller en traitte du Castor a la Nouvelle York par les
chemins marques de double rangs de points.
74. Les plus grands bastimens peuvent naviguer d’icy jusque au bout du
lac Frontenac.
75. Korlar.
76. Albanie, ci-devant Fort d’Orange.
77. Riviere du nord, ou des traittes ou Maurice.
78. Otondiata.
79. Tout ce qui est depuis la Nouvelle Hollande jusques icy et le long
du fleuve St. Laurent est convert de bois. La terre y est bonne pour la
plus part et produit de fort beau blé.
80. Riviere Onondkouy.
81. Lac Tontiarenhé.
82. Ohaté.
83. Lac et riviere de Tanouate Kenté.
84. En cet endroit la grande riviere se précipite dans un puis dont on
ne voit pas sortir.
85. Sault des chats.
86. Petite nation.
87. Long sault.
88. R. et I. Jesus, Montreal, etc.
89. Lac Champlain.
90. Lac du St. Sacrement.
91. Montagnes ou l’on trouve des veines de plomb, mais peu abondante.
92. St. Jean rapide.
93. Riviere de Richelieu.
94. Sorel.
95. Sauvages apelles Mahingans, ou Socoquis.
96. Socoquois, Goutsagans, Loups.
97. Vershe Riviere [Connecticut].
Dr. Shea places this map after La Salle’s descent of the Mississippi,
“as the Ohio at its mouth was not recognized at that time as the
Ohio of the Iroquois.” See Margry, ii. 191.] Something now needs to
be said regarding Marquette’s contribution to our knowledge of this
expedition of 1673. He seems to have prepared from memory a narrative
for Frontenac, which is printed in two different forms in Margry.[572]
Dablon used this account in his _Relation_, and sent a copy of the
manuscript to Paris;[573] but he seems also to have prepared another
copy, which was, with the original map, confided finally to the
Archives of the Collége Ste. Marie at Montreal, where Shea found it,
and translated it for his _Discovery of the Mississippi_,[574] in 1853,
giving with it a fac-simile of the map.[575]
Mr. Neill, in comparing this map with the earliest of Joliet’s, as
reproduced by Gravier says: “Joliet marks the large island toward the
extremity of Lake Superior known as Isle Royale; but he gives no name,
and he indicates four other islands on the north shore.”
[Illustration: JOLIET’S CARTE GÉNÉRALE.
“This is a sketch reduced from the Parkman copy of the map, which
measures 36 × 30 inches, and is called _Carte genlle de la France
sept^{le} contenant la descouverte du Pays des Illinois, faite par le
S^r Jolliet_; and is dedicated “A Monseigneur, Monseigneur Colbert,
Conseiller du Roy en son Conseil Royal, Ministre et Sécrétaire d’Estat,
Commandeur et Grand Trésorier des Ordes de sa Majesté, par son tres
humble, tres obeiss^t, et tres fidelle serviteur, Duchesnau, Intendant
de la Nouvelle France.” The figures stand for the following names and
legends: 1. Alimouspigoiak. 2. Oussiloua. 3. Agatomitou. 4. Chaiena.
5. Ouapikouti. 6. Napapatou. 7. Pintoüa. 8. Ihanctoua. 9. Paoutek. 10.
Maha. 11. Oloutanta. 12. Moengouena. 13. Ouatoutatoüaoü. 14. Grand
Village. 15. Tanikoüa. 16. Acahichi. 17. Minouk. 18. Emmamoüata. 19.
Akoraa. 20. Ototehiahi. 21. Tahenfa. 22. Europeans [_sic_]. 23. Mine de
fer, Sable doré, Terre rouge ou siselée, Gouza. 24. R. Ouaboustikou.
25. Mataholi et Apistanga, 18 villages. 26. Chaoüanone, 15 villages.
27. Chaboüafioüa. 28. Mine de cuivre rouge. 29. Ilinois. 30. Riviere
Miskous. 31. Mine de fer. 32. Maskoutens. 33. Outagami. 34. Puans. 35.
Chaoüamigon. 36. Siou. 37. Assinibouels. 38. Lac des Assinibouels. 39.
Minonk I. 40. Miscillimakinac. 41. Saut. 42. Missaské. 43. Amikoue. 44.
Nipissink. 45. Mataouan. 46. Riviere des Outaouacks. 47. Kinté. 48.
Ganateliftiagon. 49. Ganerafké. 50. I. Caiu-toton. 51. Fort Frontenac.
52. Teiaiagon. 53. Saût. 54. Sonontouans. 55. Oioguens. 56. Noutahe.
57. Onéoioutes. 58. Agnez. 59. Orange. 60. Hope. 61. Manate. 62.
Lac St. Sacrémt. 63. Lac Champlain. 64. Ste. Terese. 65. Sorel. 66.
Montreal. 67. Trois Rivieres. 68. Quebec. 69. Tadoussac. 70. R. St.
Jean. 71. Ketsicagouesse. 72. Baye des Espagnols. 73. Terre Neuve. 74.
Cape de Raze. 75. Plaisance. 76. I. la Magdelaine. 77. I. Brion. 78.
I. aux oiseaux. 79. Cap Breton. 80. Canceaux. 81. Acadie. 82. Port
Royal. 83. Baye des Chaleurs. 84. I. Bonventure. 85. I. Percée. 86. R.
St. Jean. 87. R. Ste. Croix. 88. R. Etchemins. 89. R. Pintagouete. 90.
Baston. 91. Miskoutenagach. 92. Ouabakounagon.] Marquette shows the
large island only, but without a name. Joliet on the north shore of
Lake Huron has three large islands,—one marked Kaintoton; Marquette
has the same number, but without names. Parallel columns will show some
other names of the two maps; the last three of each column referring to
tribes between Green Bay and the Mississippi:—
_Joliet’s Map._ _Marquette’s Map._
Lac Superieur. Lac Superieur, ov De Tracy.
Lac des Illinois, ou Missihiganin. Lac des Illinois.
Baye des Puans. No name.
Puans. Pouteoutami.
Outagami. Outagami.
Maskoutens. Maskoutens.
Joliet gives the name Miskonsing to the river, and marks the portage;
while Marquette gives no names. The country south of Lake Superior and
west of Lake Michigan in Marquette is blank. In Joliet it is marked
‘La Frontenacie.’ West of Lake Superior in Marquette is a blank; in
Joliet are several lakes and the tribe of Madouesseou. Joliet calls
the Mississippi, Rivière de Buade, and Marquette names it R. de la
Conception.”
The original French of the narrative as Shea found it at Montreal was
printed for Mr. Lenox in 1855,[576] and bears the following title:
_Récit des voyages et des découvertes du P. J. Marquette en l’année
1673, et aux suivantes_;[577] and the copy being defective in two
leaves, this matter was supplied from the print of Thevenot, next to be
mentioned.
The copy which Dablon sent to Paris was used by Thevenot, who gives
it, with some curtailment, in his _Recueil de voyages_, published in
Paris in 1681,[578] with the caption: “Voyage et découverte de quelques
pays et nations de l’Amérique septentrionale par le P. Marquette et Sr.
Joliet.”[579]
The Jesuits about this time made a map, which, from having been given
in Thevenot as Marquette’s, passed as the work of that missionary
till Shea found the genuine one in Canada. What was apparently the
original of this in Thevenot is a manuscript which Harrisse[580] says
was formerly in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, but cannot now
be found. Mr. Parkman has a copy of it, and calls it “so crude and
careless, and based on information so inexact, that it is of little
interest.”[581]
[Illustration: MARQUETTE’S GENUINE MAP.]
As engraved in Thevenot, this map differs a little, and bears the
title: “Carte de la découverte faite l’an 1673, dans l’Amérique
septentrionale. Liebaux fecit.” Sparks followed this engraving in
the map in his _Life of Marquette_, and calls it, with the knowledge
then current, “the first that was ever published of the Mississippi
River.”[582]
* * * * *
Marquette’s later history is but brief. In the autumn of the next year
(1674) he started to found a mission among the Illinois; but being
detained by illness near Chicago, he did not reach the Indian town
of Kaskaskia till the spring of 1675. His strength was ebbing, and
he started with his companions to return to St. Ignace, but had only
reached a point on the easterly shore of Lake Michigan, when he died,
and his companions buried him beside their temporary hut. The next year
some Ottawas who had been of his flock unearthed the bones and carried
them to Michillimackinac, where they were buried beneath the floor of
the little mission chapel.[583]
[Illustration: MISSISSIPPI VALLEY, 1672-1673.
This is a reduction of a manuscript map placed by Mr. Parkman in
Harvard College Library, no. 5 of the series, entitled: _Carte de la
nouvelle decouverte que les péres Jesuites ont fait en l’année 1672,
et continnuée par le P. Iacques Marquette de la mesme compagnie,
accompagné de quelques françois en l’année 1673, qu’on pourra nommer
en françois_ LA MANITOUMIE _a cause de la statue qui s’est trouvée
dans une belle vallée, et que les sauvages vont reconnoistre pour leur
divinitè, qu’ils appellent Manitou qui signifie esprit ou génie_. A
rude figure of this statue is placed on the map at 4, with this legend:
“Manitou statue ou les sauvages font faire leurs adorations.” The other
longer legends are: 1. “Nations qui ont des chevaux et des chameaux.”
2. “On est venu jusques icy a la hauteur de 33 deg.” 3. “Monsoupena,
ils ont des fusila.” It will be seen that the return route of Marquette
and Joliet is incorrectly laid down. Parkman’s _La Salle_, p. 65.]
Thirty years ago there were statements made by M. Noiseux, late
vicar-general of Quebec, to the effect that Marquette was not the first
priest to visit the Illinois; but the matter was set at rest by Dr.
Shea.[584] A renewed interest came in 1873 with the bicentennial of
the discovery. Dr. Shea delivered an address on the occasion of the
celebration,[585] and he also made an Address on the same theme before
the Missouri Historical Society, July 19, 1878.[586] At the Laval
University in Quebec the anniversary was also observed on the 17th of
June, 1873, when a discourse was delivered by the Abbé Verreau.[587]
[Illustration: FORT FRONTENAC.
This sketch follows a plan sent by Denonville in 1685 to Paris, which
is engraved in Faillon, _Histoire de la Colonie Française_, iii. 467.
The key is as follows: 1. Four à chaux. 2. Grange. 3. Etable. 4.
Logis. 5. Corps de garde. 6. Guerite sur la porte. 7. Boulangerie. 8.
Palissade. 9. Moulin. 10. Mortier sans chaux. 11. Fondement bâti. 12.
Haut de 4 pieds. 13. Haut de 12 pi^s. 14. A chaux et sable. 15. Puits.
16. Magasin à poudre. The peninsula extended into Lake Ontario. It is
the fort as rebuilt of stone by La Salle. Cf. the paper on La Salle’s
expenses on this fort, etc., in 2 _Pennsylvania Archives_, vi. 14, of
which the original and other papers are given in Margry (i. 291).]
New complications were now forming. The new governor, Frontenac, was
needy in purse, expedient in devices, and on terms of confidence with
a man destined to gain a name in this western discovery.[588] This was
La Salle. Parkman pictures him with having a certain robust ambition
to conquer the great valley for France and himself, and to outdo the
Jesuits. Shea sees in him little of the hero, and few traces of a
powerful purpose.[589] Whatever his character, he was soon embarked
with Frontenac on a far-reaching scheme. It has been explained in
the preceding chapter how the erection of a fort had been begun by
Frontenac near the present town of Kingston on Lake Ontario. By means
of such a post he hoped to intercept the trafficking of the Dutch and
English, and turn an uninterrupted peltry trade to the French. The
Jesuits at least neglected the scheme, but neither Frontenac nor La
Salle cared much for them.[590] Fort Frontenac was the first stage in
La Salle’s westward progress, and he was politic enough to espouse the
Governor’s side in all things when disputes occasionally ran high.
His becoming the proprietor of the seigniory, which included the new
fort, meant the exclusion of others from the trade in furs, and such
exclusion made enemies of the merchants. It meant also colonization and
settlements; and that interfered with the labors of the Jesuits among
the savages, and made them look to the great western valley, of which
so much had been said; but La Salle was looking there too.[591]
In the first place he had strengthened his fort. He had pulled down
the wooden structure, and built another of stones and palisades, of
which a plan is preserved to us. He had drawn communities of French and
natives about him, and maintained a mission, with which Louis Hennepin
was connected. We have seen how in the autumn of 1677[592] he went
once more to France, securing the right of seigniory over other posts
as he might establish them south and west during the next five years.
This was by a patent dated at St. Germain-en-Laye, May 12, 1678.[593]
With dreams of Mexico and of a clime sunnier than that of Canada, La
Salle returned to Quebec to make new leagues with the merchants, and
to listen to Hennepin, who had come down from Fort Frontenac to meet
him.[594] Mr. Neill (in the previous chapter) has followed his fortunes
from this point, and we have seen him laying the keel of a vessel above
the cataract.[595]
While this was going on La Salle returned below the Falls, and having
begun two blockhouses on the site of the later Fort Niagara,[596]
proceeded to Fort Frontenac. By spring Tonty had the “Griffin” ready
for launching. She was of forty-five or fifty tons, and when she had
her equipment on board, five cannon looked from her port-holes. The
builders made all ready for a voyage in her, but grew weary in waiting
for La Salle, who did not return till August, when he brought with him
Membré the priest, whose Journal we are to depend on later, and the
vessel departed on the voyage which Mr. Neill has sketched.[597]
After the “Griffin” had departed homeward from this region, La Salle
and his canoes followed up the western shores of the lake, while Tonty
and another party took the eastern. The two finally met at the Miamis,
or St. Joseph River, near the southeastern corner of Lake Michigan.
They now together went up the St. Joseph, and crossing the portage[598]
launched their canoes on the Kankakee, an upper tributary of the
Illinois River, and passed on to the great town of the tribe of that
name, where Marquette had been before them, near the present town of
Utica.[599] They found the place deserted, for the people were on
their winter hunt. They discovered, however, pits of corn, and got
much-needed food. Passing on, a little distance below Peoria Lake they
came upon some inhabited wigwams. Among these people La Salle learned
how his enemies in Canada were inciting them to thwart his progress;
and there were those under this incitement who pictured so vividly
the terrors of the southern regions, that several of La Salle’s men
deserted.
In January (1680) La Salle began a fortified camp near at hand, and
called it Fort Crèvecœur,[600] and soon after he was at work building
another vessel of forty tons. He also sent off Michel Accau, or
Accault, and Hennepin on the expedition, of which some account is given
by Mr. Neill, and also by the Editor in a subsequent note. Leaving
Tonty in command of the fort, La Salle, in March, started to return to
Fort Frontenac, his object being to get equipments for his vessel; for
he had by this time made up his mind that nothing more would be seen
of the “Griffin” and her return lading of anchors and supplies. For
sixty-five days he coursed a wild country and braved floods. He made,
however, the passage of a thousand miles in safety to Fort Frontenac,
only to become aware of the disastrous state of his affairs,—the loss
of supplies.[601] A little later the same sort of news followed him
from Tonty, whose men had mutinied and scattered. His first thought
was to succor Tonty and the faithful few who remained with him; and
accordingly he started again for the Illinois country, which he found
desolate and terrible with the devastations of the Iroquois. He passed
the ruins of Crèvecœur, and went even to the mouth of the Illinois; and
under these distressing circumstances he saw the Mississippi for the
first time. Then he retraced his way, and was once again at Fort Miami.
Not a sign had been seen of Tonty, who had escaped from the feud of the
Iroquois and Illinois, not knowing which side to trust, and had made
his way down the western side of Lake Michigan toward Green Bay.
La Salle meanwhile at Fort Miami was making new plans and resolutions.
He had an idea of banding together under his leadership all the
western tribes, and by this means to keep the Iroquois in check while
he perfected his explorations southward. So in the spring (1681) he
returned to the Illinois country to try to form the league; and while
there first heard from some wandering Outagamies of the safe arrival of
Tonty at Green Bay, and of the passage through that region of Hennepin
eastward. Among the Illinois and on the St. Joseph he was listened to,
and everything promised well for his intended league. In May he went
to Michillimackinac, where he found Tonty and Membré, and with them
he proceeded to Fort Frontenac. Here once more his address got him
new supplies, and in the autumn (1681) he was again on his westward
way. In the latter part of December, with a company of fifty-four
souls,—French and savage, including some squaws,—he crossed the
Chicago portage; and sledding and floating down the Illinois, on the
6th of February he and his companions glided out upon the Mississippi
among cakes of swimming ice. On they went.[602] Stopping at one of
the Chickasaw bluffs, they built a small stockade and called it after
Prudhomme, who was left in charge of it. Again they stopped for a
conference of three days with a band of Indians near the mouth of the
Arkansas, where, on the 14th of March, in due form, La Salle took
possession of the neighboring country in the name of his King.[603]
On still they went, stopping at various villages and towns, securing
a welcome by the peace-pipe, and erecting crosses bearing the arms
of France in the open squares of the Indian settlements. On the 6th
of April La Salle divided his party into three, and each took one of
the three arms which led to the Gulf. On the 9th they reunited, and
erecting a column just within one of the mouths of the river, La Salle
formally took possession of the great Mississippi basin in the name
of the French monarch, whom he commemorated in applying the name of
Louisiana to the valley.[604]
Up the stream their canoes were now turned. On reaching Fort Prudhomme
La Salle was prostrated with a fever. Here he stayed, nursed by
Membré,[605] while Tonty went on to carry the news of their success
to Michillimackinac, whence to despatch messengers to the lower
settlements. At St. Ignace La Salle joined his lieutenant.
* * * * *
For the events of these two years we have two main sources of
information. First, the “Relation de la descouverte de l’embouchure
de la Rivière Mississipi dans le Golfe de Mexique, faite par le Sieur
de la Salle, l’année passée, 1682,” which was first published by
Thomassy;[606] the original is preserved in the Archives Scientifiques
de la Marine, and though written in the third person it is held to
constitute La Salle’s Official Report, though perhaps written for him
by Membré.[607] Second, the narrative ascribed to Membré which is
printed in Le Clercq’s _Établissement de la Foi_, ii. 214, and which
seems to be based on the document already named.[608]
In addition to this there is the paper of Nicolas de la Salle (no
kinsman of the explorer), who wrote for Iberville’s guidance, in 1699,
his _Récit de la découverte que M. de la Salle a faite de la Rivière de
Mississipi en 1682_.[609]
* * * * *
La Salle’s future plans were now clearly fixed in his own mind, which
were to reach from Europe the Mississippi by sea, and to make it the
avenue of approach to the destined colonies, which he now sent Tonty
to establish on the Illinois. With as little delay as possible, he
went himself to join his deputy. In December they selected the level
summit of the scarped rock (Starved Rock), on the river near the great
Illinois town, and there intrenched themselves, calling their fort
“St. Louis.” Around it were the villages and lodges of near twenty
thousand savages, including, it is estimated, about four thousand
warriors. To this projected colony La Salle was under the necessity of
trying to bring his supplies from Canada till the route by the Gulf
could be secured,—that Canada in which he had many enemies, and whose
new governor, De la Barre, was hostile to him, writing letters of
disparagement respecting him to the Court in Paris,[610] and seizing
his seigniory at Fort Frontenac on shallow pretexts. Thwarted in all
efforts for succor from below, La Salle left Tonty in charge of the
new fort,[611] and started for Quebec, meeting on the way an officer
sent to supersede him in command. From Quebec La Salle sailed for
France.[612]
At this time the young French engineer, Franquelin, was in Quebec
making record as best he could, from such information as reached
headquarters, of the progress of the various discoverers. There
are maps of his as early as 1679 and 1681 which are enumerated by
Harrisse.[613] Parkman is also inclined to ascribe to Franquelin a
map with neither date nor author, but of superior skill in drafting,
which is called _Carte de l’Amérique septentrionale et partie de
la meridionale ... avec les nouvelles decouvertes de la Rivière
Mississipi, ou Colbert_. It records an event of 1679 in a legend, and
omits the lower Mississippi; which would indicate that the record was
made before the results of La Salle’s explorations were known.[614] A
sketch of the Map of 1682 is given herewith from a copy in the Barlow
Collection.
[Illustration: MAP OF 1682.]
From La Salle, on his arrival in Quebec late in 1683, Franquelin
undoubtedly got new and trustworthy information of that explorer’s
expedition down the Mississippi; and this he embodied in what is
usually known as Franquelin’s Great Map of 1684. It professed to
have been made in Paris, and as Franquelin was not in that city in
1684, Harrisse contends that it was the work of De la Croix upon
Franquelin’s material. It is called _Carte de la Louisiane, ou des
voyages du Sieur de la Salle et des pays qu’il a découverts depuis la
Nouvelle-France jusqu’au Golfe de Mexique, les années 1679-80-81 et 82,
par Jean-Baptiste Louis Franquelin, l’an 1684, Paris_. It was formerly
in the Archives du Dépôt de la Marine; but Harrisse[615] reports it as
missing from that repository, and describes it from the accounts given
by Parkman and by Thomassy.[616] A manuscript copy of this map was made
for Mr. Parkman, which is now in Harvard College Library, and from this
copy another copy was made in 1856, which is now in the Library of
Parliament at Ottawa. Mr. Parkman’s copy has been used in the annexed
sketch.
[Illustration: FRANQUELIN’S 1684 MAP.]
Harrisse says that De la Croix made the _Carte de l’Amérique
septent^{le}_,[617] which also purports to be Franquelin’s, and shows
the observations of “douze années.” Harrisse places this map also in
1684, for the reason that a third map by Franquelin, _Carte de la
Amérique septentrionale_,[618] is dated 1688, and claims to embody the
observations of “plus de 16 années,” giving names and legends not in
the earlier ones.[619]
“It indicates,” says Mr. Neill, “the post which had been recently
established by Du Lhut near the lower extremity of Lake Huron, and
gives the present name, Manitoulin, to the large island of Lake Huron,
and marks on the west shore a Baye de Saginnam. It places the mission
on the south shore of Sault Ste. Marie, and names the rivers and points
on the north and south shores of Lake Superior. A stream near the
present northern boundary-line of the United States is called ‘R. des
Grossillers,’ after the first explorer of Minnesota. The river entering
Lake Superior at the present Fort William is ‘Kamanistigouian, ou Les
Trois Rivières.’ Isle Royale is called ‘Minong;’ upon the northeast
part of ‘Lac Alepimigon’ is Du Lhut’s post, ‘Fort La Tourette.’ At the
portage between the sources of the St. Croix and a stream entering
Lake Superior is ‘Fort St. Croix,’ which Bellin says was afterward
abandoned. The St. Croix River is called ‘R. de la Magdelaine.’ At
the lower extremity of Lake Pepin is ‘Fort St. Antoine;’ and the
site of the present town of Prairie du Chien, near the mouth of the
Wisconsin, appears as ‘Fort St. Nicolas,’ named in compliment to the
baptismal name of Perrot. The Minnesota River is marked ‘Les Mascoutens
Nadouescioux,’ indicating that it ran through the country of the
Prairie Sioux. After Pierre Le Sueur had explored this river, De
l’Isle, in his map of 1703, gives it the name of St. Pierre, as it is
supposed in compliment to Le Sueur.”
A map of the next year (1689), also in the Archives, claims to be based
on “Mémoires et relations qu’il a eu soin de recueillir pendant pres
de 17 années.” Harrisse thinks this also a copy by De la Croix, and
notes others of the probable dates of 1692 and 1699 respectively.[620]
Harrisse also records[621] a manuscript map, “composée, corrigée,
et augmentée sur les journaux, mémoires, et observations les plus
justes qui en ont été f^{tes}. en l’année 1685 et 1686,” which is also
preserved in the French Archives; and a _Carte Gēralle du voyage que
Mons^r De Meulles ... a fait; ... commencé le 9^e Novembre et finy le
6^e Juillet, 1686_,[622] which was dedicated to Seignelay in the same
year.
Parkman[623] says of the maps of Franquelin subsequent to his Great Map
of 1684, that they all have more or less of its features, but that the
1684 map surpasses them all in interest and completeness.
* * * * *
It is convenient to complete here this enumeration of the maps of the
western lakes and the Mississippi basin before we turn to La Salle’s
explorations from the Gulf side.
One of the earliest of the printed maps is that called _Partie
occidentale du Canada, ou de la Nouvelle France, ou sont les nations
des Ilinois, de Tracy, les Iroquois, et plusieurs autres peuples, avec
la Louisiane nouvellement découverte, ... par le P. Coronelli, corrigée
et augmentée par le Sr. Tillemon à Paris, 1688_, of which the annexed
sketch follows a copy in Harvard College Library. This was united with
the _Partie orientale_ in 1689 in a single smaller map.[624]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: FRANQUELIN’S 1688 MAP.]
[Illustration: CORONELLI ET TILLEMON, 1688.]
The routes of several of the early explorers, like those of Du Lhut,
Joliet, and Marquette (1672), and La Salle (1679-1680), are laid down
on a manuscript map, _Carte des parties les plus occidentales du
Canada, par le Père Pierre Raffeix, S. J._,[625] which is preserved in
the Bibliothèque Nationale, and of which a sketch as “Raffeix, 1688,”
is given on the next page.
[Illustration]
A map of Lakes Ontario and Erie, by the Père Raffeix, is in the
Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris;[626] and from a copy in the Kohl
Collection at Washington the sketch on page 234 is taken. It is called,
_Le Lac Ontario avec les lieux circonvoisins et particulierment les
cinq Nations Iroquoises_.
Another map, thought to be the work of Raudin, Frontenac’s
engineer,[627] should be found in the Archives of the Marine, but
according to Harrisse it is not there.[628] The Barlow Collection,
however, has a map which Harrisse believes to be the lost original;
a sketch of the western part is given herewith.[629] It also gives
the eastern seaboard with approximate accuracy, but represents Lake
Champlain as lying along the headwaters of the Connecticut and the
Hudson. Lake Erie is a squarish oblong, larger than Ontario, and of a
shape rarely found in these early maps. In the upper lakes it resembles
the map of 1672-1673, which Harrisse[630] also found missing from the
Bibliothèque Nationale.
The maps which pertain to Hennepin and Lahontan are separately treated
on a later page.
[Illustration: RAFFEIX, 1688.
This sketch is from a copy in the Kohl Washington Collection. There
is another copy in the Barlow Collection. The original is in the
Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. (Harrisse, _Notes_, etc., no. 238.) It
is marked, _Parties les plus occidentales du Canada, Pierre Raffeix,
Jesuite_. Harrisse puts it under 1688; Kohl says between 1681 and 1688.
The lines of exploration, as indicated on it, are explained in the
marginal inscriptions as follows:—
Voyage et premiere descouverte de la riviere de Mississipi faite par
le P. Marquette, Jesuitte, et Mr. Jolliet, en 1672.
(—.—.) signifie l’allée.
(.....), le retour.
Ils furent jusques pres du 32 degré d’elevation. (.——.) Mr. du Lude,
qui le premier a esté ches les Sious ou Nadouesiou en 1678, et qui a
esté proche la source du Mississipi, et qui ensuitte vint retirer le
p. Louis [Hennepin], qui avoit esté fait prisonnier ches les Sious au
P., et sen reviendre finir leur descouverte par ou le P. Marquette et
Mr. Jolliet commencer la leur.
(..—..—) Voyage de Mr. de la Salle en 1679, qui ariva au fond du lac
des Illinois et qui voula commencer un petit fort, et une barque a
Crevecoeur, d’ou le Pere Louis [Hennepin] partit pour aller en haut a
la descouverte. Mr. de la Salle escrit qu’en 1681 il descendit sur le
Mississipi, et qu’il a esté jusqua la mer.
(E) Voyage a faire et plus facile pour descouvrir tout le Missĩpi en
venant du lac Ontario au bourg des Senontonans et de la en E.
(F) 1. De l’Embouchure de cette petite riviere jusqu’aux Assinipouals
et aleurs lacs Ilne a que 100 lieues.
2. Le pais des Assinipouals qui est le plus a l’ouest est un pais de
continuelles prairies cõme tout le long du Missĩpi, et l’on y voit
quelque fois passer dans un jour plus de 2 a 3,000 beufs sauvages. Il
faut remarquer que osté la forme exacte de lacs que le peu de temps na
pas permis de rechercher et que l’on trouve dans d’autres cartes; les
rivieres y sont marques avec beaucoup de soin.
PIERRE RAFFÆIX, _Jesuitte_.]
La Salle once in Paris (1684) succeeded in obtaining an interview with
the King, to whom he then and subsequently in Memorials,[631] which
have been saved to us, presented an ambitious scheme of fortifying
the Mississippi near its mouths, and of subjugating the neighboring
Spanish colonies, of whose propinquity he had very confused notions, as
Franquelin’s map showed.
[Illustration: ONTARIO AND ERIE, BY RAFFEIX, 1688.]
Peñalosa was at the same time pressing on the Court a plan for
establishing a French colony at the mouth of the Rio Bravo. La Salle’s
personal address, too, turned the scales against La Barre.
[Illustration]
Accordingly, La Forest, the rejected commander of Fort Frontenac, was
sent back to Canada with letters from the King commanding the Governor
to make restitution to La Salle’s lieutenant both of Fort Frontenac and
of Fort St. Louis. La Salle’s shining promises so affected Louis, that
the King gave him more vessels than he asked for; and of these one,
the “Joly,” carried thirty-six guns, and another six.[632] Among his
company were his brother Cavelier and two other Sulpitian priests, and
three Recollects, Membré, Douay, and Le Clercq.
[Illustration]
A captain of the royal navy, Beaujeu, was detailed to navigate the
“Joly,” but under the direction of La Salle, who was to be supreme.
La Salle’s distrust and vacillation, and Beaujeu’s jealousy and
assumptions boded no good, and a dozen warm quarrels between them were
patched up before they got to sea.[633]
[Illustration: PART OF RAUDIN’S MAP.
Harrisse says: “This is the only map in which the name Bazire is given
to the Arkansas River. Bazire was a merchant of Canada who in 1673
supported Frontenac in his design of building Fort Frontenac, with
which Raudin had also a great deal to do.” This follows the Barlow
original. There is in the Parkman Collection a copy of a part of it by
Harrisse.]
There was not a little in all this to point to a state of mental
unsoundness in La Salle. At a late day Joutel, a fellow-townsman of La
Salle, destined to become the expedition’s historian, joined the fleet
at Rochelle, and on the 24th of July (1684) it sailed, only to put
back, four days later, to repair a broken bowsprit of the “Joly.” Once
again they put to sea.
[Illustration: LA SALLE’S CAMP.
This is a reduced sketch from a copy in the Barlow collection of a
_Plan de l’entrée du lac ou l’on a laissé Mon^r de la Salle_, which
is preserved in the Archives of the Marine. It is Harrisse’s no. 226.
The key is as follows: 1. Le camp de M. de la Salle. 2. Endroit ou
la flutte c’est perdue. 3. La frigatte la “Belle” mouillée. 4 and 5.
Cabannes des sauvages.]
Everything still went wrong. The leaders chafed and quarrelled as on
land.[634] The Spaniards captured their smallest vessel.[635] At Santo
Domingo the Governor of the island and his officers joined in the
quarrel on the side of La Salle, who now fell prostrate with disease.
When he recovered he set sail again with his three remaining ships on
the 25th of November, coasted the southern shore of Cuba, and on New
Year’s Day (1685) sighted land somewhere near the River Sabine. He
supposed himself east of the Mississippi mouths, when in fact he was
far to the west of them. He knew their latitude, for he had taken the
sun when there on his canoe voyage in 1682; but he had at that time no
means of ascertaining their longitude. The “Joly” next disappeared in a
fog, and La Salle waited for her four or five days, but in vain. So he
sailed on farther till he found the coast trending southerly, when he
turned, and shortly after met the “Joly.” Passages of crimination and
recrimination between the leaders of course followed.[636] La Salle all
the while was trying to make out that the numerous lagoons along the
coast were somehow connected with the mouths of the Mississippi, while
Beaujeu, vexed at the confusion and indecision of La Salle’s mind,
did little to make matters clearer. They were in reality at Matagorda
Bay. Trying to make an anchorage within, one of the vessels struck
a reef and became a total wreck, and only a small part of her cargo
was saved.[637] La Salle suspected it was done to embarrass him; and
landing his men, he barricaded himself on the unhealthy ground, amid a
confusion of camp equipage, including what was saved from the wreck.
A swarm of squalid savages looked on, and saw a half-dozen of the
Frenchmen buried daily. The Indians contrived to pilfer some blankets,
and when a force was sent to punish them they killed several of the
French. Beaujeu offered some good advice, but La Salle rejected it; and
finally, on the 12th of March the “Joly” sailed, and La Salle was left
with his forlorn colony.[638] Beaujeu steered, as he thought, for the
Baye du St. Esprit (Mobile Bay [?]); but his belief that he was leaving
the mouths of the Mississippi made him miss that harbor, and after
various adventures he bore away for France, and reached Rochelle about
the 1st of July. With him returned the engineer, Minet, who made on the
voyage a map of the mouths of the Mississippi doubly interpreted,—one
sketch being based on the Franquelin map of 1684, as La Salle had found
it in 1682; and the other conformed to their recent observations about
Matagorda, into whose lagoons he made this great river discharge.[639]
[Illustration: CARTE DE LA LOUISIANE, BY MINET, 1685.
This is a reduced sketch from a copy (Barlow Collection) of the
original in the Archives of the Marine, giving two plans of the mouth
of the river,—the one in the body of the map as “La Salle le marque
dans sa carte,” and the other (here put in the small square), “Comme
nous les avons trouvez.” It is Harrisse’s no. 225.]
It soon dawned upon La Salle that he was not at the Mississippi delta;
and it was imperative that he should establish a base for future
movements. So he projected a settlement on the Lavaca River, which
flowed into the head of the bay; and thither all went, and essayed the
rough beginnings of a post, which he called Fort St. Louis.[640] He was
also constrained to lay out a graveyard, which received its tenants
rapidly. As soon as housing and stockades were finished, La Salle, on
the last day of October (1685), leaving Joutel in command, started with
fifty men to search for the Mississippi.
The first tidings Joutel got of his absent chief was in January (1686),
when a straggler from La Salle’s party appeared, and told a woeful
story of his mishaps. By the end of March La Salle himself returned
with some of his companions; others he had left in a palisaded fort
which he had built on a great river somewhere away. While on his return
he detached some of his men to find his little frigate, the “Belle,”
which he had left at a certain place on the coast. These men also soon
appeared, but they brought no tidings of the vessel. The loss of her
and of what she had on board made matters very desperate, and La Salle
determined on another expedition, this time to the Illinois country
and to Canada, whence he could send word to France for succor. On the
22d of April they started,—La Salle, his brother Cavelier, the Friar
Douay, and a score or so others.
Joutel was still left in command; and a few days later the appearance
of six men, who alone had been saved from the wreck of the “Belle,”
and reached the fort, confirmed the worst fears of that vessel’s
fate. Meanwhile La Salle was experiencing dangers and evils of all
kinds,—the desertion and death of his men, and delays by sickness,
and the spending of ammunition. Once again there was nothing for him
to do but to return to Joutel, and so with eight out of his twenty men
he came back to the fort. The colony had dwindled from one hundred
and eighty to forty-five souls, and another attempt to secure succor
was imperative. So in January (1687) a new cheerless party set out,
Joutel this time accompanying La Salle; and with the rest were Duhaut,
a sinister man, and Liotot the surgeon. For two months it was the
same story of suffering on the march and of danger in the camp. Then
quarrels ensued; and the murder of La Salle’s nephew and two others
who were devoted to him compelled the assassins to save themselves
by killing La Salle himself; and from an ambuscade Duhaut and Liotot
shot their chief. The party now succumbed to the rule of Duhaut. They
ranged aimlessly among the Indians for a while, and fell in with
some deserters of La Salle’s former expedition now living among the
savages. One of these conspired with Hiens, one of those privy to La
Salle’s death, and killed the assassins Duhaut and Liotot. Joutel with
the few who were left now parted amicably with Hiens and the savage
Frenchmen, and pushed their way to find the Great River. At a point on
the Arkansas not far from its confluence with the Mississippi, they
were rejoiced to find the abode of two of Tonty’s men. This sturdy
adherent of La Salle’s fortunes had been reinstated, as we have seen,
by the King’s order, in the command of the fortified rock on the
Illinois, and had in due time, after the return of Beaujeu to Rochelle,
got the news of La Salle’s landing on the Gulf. In February, 1686, he
had started down the river with a band of French and Indians to join
his old commander. He reached the Gulf,[641] but of course failed to
find La Salle; and returning, had left several men in the villages
of the Arkansas, of whom Couture and another now welcomed Joutel and
his weary companions. After some delay the wanderers floated their
wooden canoe down the Arkansas, and then began their weary journey up
the Great River, and by the middle of September they reached the Fort
St. Louis of the Illinois. They found Tonty absent, and Bellefontaine
in command. They foolishly thought to increase their welcome by
presenting themselves as the forerunners of La Salle, who was on the
way,—tidings which kept all in good spirits except the Jesuit Allouez,
who happened to be in the fort, and was ill, for he was conscious of
his machinations against La Salle, and dreaded to encounter him.[642]
Cavelier and Joutel soon started for the Chicago portage. A storm
on the lake impeded them subsequently, and they came back to the
fort to find Tonty returned from Denonville’s campaign against the
Senecas.[643] The same deceit regarding La Salle’s fate was practised
on Tonty, and he gave them money and supplies as to La Salle’s
representatives, only to learn a few months later, when Couture came
up from the Arkansas, of La Salle’s murder. The wanderers, however,
had now passed on, had reached Quebec in safety, still concealing what
they knew, and not disclosing it till they reached France; and even in
France there is a suspicion that Cavelier held his peace till he had
secured some property against the seizure of La Salle’s creditors. Why
Joutel connived at the deception is less comprehensible, for otherwise
he bears a fair name. No representations of his, however, could induce
the King to send succor to the hapless colony; and all the result, so
far as known, of the tardy acknowledgment of La Salle’s death was an
order sent to Canada for the arrest of his murderers.
The story which Couture told to Tonty in September inspired that hero
with a determination to try to rescue La Salle’s colony on the Gulf. So
in December he left his fortified rock, with five Frenchmen and three
others. Late in March he was on the Red River, where all but two of his
companions deserted him. He was himself finally, by the loss of his
ammunition, compelled to turn back, but not till he had learned of the
probable death of Heins.[644] In September he reached his fort on the
Illinois; and here, with La Forest, he continued to live, holding the
seigniory jointly under a royal patent, and trading in furs, till 1702,
when the establishment was broken up.[645] Tonty now joined D’Iberville
in Louisiana, and of his subsequent years nothing is known. The French
again occupied his rocky fastness; but when Charlevoix saw it, in 1721,
it was only a ruin.
The fate of the Texan colony is soon told. The Spaniards who had
searched for it by sea had always missed it, though they had found the
wrecked vessels.[646] A Frenchman, probably a deserter from La Salle,
fell into the Spaniards’ hands in New Leon. From him they learned
its position, and despatched under the Frenchman’s guidance a force
to capture it. They found the fort deserted, and three dead bodies a
little distance off. From the Indians they learned of two Frenchmen who
were living with a distant tribe. They sent for them under a pledge of
good treatment; and when they came, they proved to be L’Archevêque, one
of Duhaut’s accomplices, and one of the stray deserters whom Joutel
had discovered after the murder. They told a story of ravages from
the small-pox and of slaughter by the savages. A few of the colonists
had been saved by the Indian women; but these were subsequently given
up to the Spaniards, and they added their testimony to the sad and
ignominious end of the colony.
* * * * *
It is necessary to define the historical sources regarding this hapless
Texan expedition, about the purpose of which there have been some
diverse views lately expressed. It is clear that under cover of a grand
plan of Spanish conquest, La Salle had dazed the imagination of the
King in memorials,[647] which may possibly have been only meant to
induce the royal espousal of his more personal schemes. Shea contends
that La Salle’s real object was not to settle in Louisiana, but to
conquer Santa Barbara and the mining regions in Mexico, and to pave the
way for Peñalosa’s expedition.[648]
For the broader relations of the expedition to the earlier explorations
of 1682, we must go to a source of the first importance preserved in
the Archives of the Marine. It is entitled _Mémoire envoyé en 1693 sur
la découverte du Mississipi et des nations voisines par le Sieur de
la Salle, en 1678, et depuis sa mort par le Sieur de Tonty_, and is
printed by Margry;[649] and Parkman calls it excellent authority. Out
of this and an earlier paper, written in Quebec in 1684,[650] a book,
disowned by Tonty, as Charlevoix tells us, was in part fabricated, and
appeared at Paris in 1697 under the title of _Dernières découvertes
dans l’Amérique septentrionale de M. de la Salle, mises au jour par M.
le Chevalier Tonti, gouverneur du Fort St. Louis, aux Islinois_.[651]
Parkman[652] calls it “a compilation full of errors,” and does not
rely upon it. Shea says of it that, “although repudiated by Tonti, it
must have been based on papers of his.” It has been held apocryphal by
Iberville and Margry; but Falconer, La Harpe, Boimare, and Gravier put
trust in it.
It is thought that a Journal by Joutel was written in part to
counteract the statements of the _Dernières découvertes_. This Joutel
paper was given first in full by Margry,[653] and Parkman[654] says
of it that it seems to be “the work of an honest and intelligent
man.”[655] It was printed in Paris in 1713, but abridged and changed
in a way which Joutel complained of, and bore the title, _Journal
historique du dernier voyage que feu M. de la Salle fit dans le
Golfe du Mexique, pour trouver l’embouchure du Mississipi. Par M.
Joutel_.[656]
To these there are various supplemental narratives, with their interest
centring in the death of La Salle.[657] Joutel gives an account of
the scene as he learned it at the time.[658] Tonty’s account was at
second hand. Douay saw the deed, and what he reported is given in Le
Clercq’s _Établissement de la Foi_.[659] A document in the Archives of
the Marine—_Relation de la mort du Sr. de la Salle, suivant le rapport
d’un nommé Couture, à qui M. Cavelier l’apprit en passant au pays des
Akansa_—is given by Margry;[660] and Harrisse thinks that it merits
little confidence.
Cavelier is known to have made a report to Seignelay; and his rough
draft of this was recovered in 1854 by Parkman,[661] who calls it
“confused and unsatisfactory in its statements, and all the latter part
has been lost,” the fragment closing several weeks before the death of
his brother.[662]
The character of Beaujeu has certainly been put in a more favorable
light by the publication of Margry, and the old belief in his treachery
has been somewhat modified.[663]
The Spanish account of the fate of the colony is translated from
Barcia’s _Ensayo cronologico de la Florida_,[664] in Shea’s _Discovery
of the Mississippi_;[665] and Margry[666] adds to our knowledge, as
does Buckingham Smith in his _Coleccion_.[667]
It remains now to speak of the Collections which have been formed,
and the theories regarding these Western explorations which have
been maintained, by M. Pierre Margry, who has occupied till within
a few years the office of archivist of the Marine and Colonies in
Paris, having been for a long period assistant and principal. Margry
may be said to have discovered what that department contained in
manuscripts relating to the explorations of the Mississippi Valley and
River, particularly as regards La Salle’s agency. On more than one
occasion he has done good service in helping to enrich the archives of
New York[668] and Canada with copies of documents known to him,—so
far, apparently, as they did not interfere with his own projects
of publication. His position created relations for him with other
departments of the French Government, and his eager discernment found
an abundance of manuscript treasures even in private hands. These he
assiduously gathered, and on a few occasions he published papers[669]
which seemed to indicate more than he chose to disclose explicitly;
for his fellow-students were not quite satisfied, and longed for the
documents which had yielded so much. As the guardian of the public
archives, he was by office the agent and servant of the public; but
other investigators, it is feared, failed, through obstacles thrown in
their way, to profit as they might by what that office contained. There
is in the Sparks Collection of Manuscripts in Harvard College Library
a volume of copies of such documents as could be found in the Paris
Archives which that historian intended to use in another edition of his
_Life of La Salle_. While Mr. Sparks was regretting that not a single
document or letter in the hand of the great explorer had come down to
us, enough to fill a large volume was immured in these Paris Archives.
At a later day Mr. Parkman, in turn, failed of access to documents
which were of the first importance to him, and he was obliged to make
the best use he could of what it was possible to obtain. Environed by
these disadvantages Mr. Parkman published, in 1869, his _Discovery
of the Great West_. In his Preface, speaking of the obscurity which
had enshrouded the whole subject, he referred to the “indefatigable
research of M. Pierre Margry, Assistant-Custodian of the Archives of
the Marine and Colonies at Paris, whose labors as an investigator of
the maritime and colonial history of France can be appreciated only by
those who have seen their results.”
Gravier about the same time referred to the twenty years of study which
had made M. Margry the most learned of students of La Salle’s history.
It was evident that investigators could not profit by this accumulation
of material, unless M. Margry’s hopes of publication were realized. He
refused offers to purchase. In conjunction with M. Harrisse, an effort
was made by him in 1870-1871 to enlist the aid of the United States
Congress; but a vote which passed the Senate failed in the House. The
great fire at Boston in 1872 stayed the progress which, under Mr.
Parkman’s instigation, had been made to insure a private publication.
At last, by Mr. Parkman’s assiduous labors in the East, and by those
of Colonel Whittlesey, Mr. O. H. Marshall, and others in the West, and
with the active sympathy of the Hon. George F. Hoar, a bill was passed
Congress in 1873, making a subscription for five hundred copies of the
intended work.[670]
With this guaranty M. Margry put to press the series of volumes
entitled _Mémoires et documents pour servir à l’histoire des origines
Françaises de pays d’outre-mer: découvertes et établissements des
Français dans l’ouest et dans le sud d’Amérique septentrionale_.
The first volume appeared in 1876. It contained an Introduction by
M. Margry, and was prefixed by a very questionable likeness of La
Salle,—the picture (of which nothing was said by the editor) having
no better foundation than the improbable figure of the explorer in a
copperplate, published some years after his death, representing the
scene of his murder, and of which a fac-simile is annexed.[671] Of the
intended volumes, three are devoted to La Salle, and appeared between
1876 and 1878: vol. i., _Voyages des Français sur les grands lacs, et
découvertes de l’Ohio et du Mississippi_, 1614-1684; vol. ii., _Lettres
de La Salle, et correspondance relative à ses entreprises_, 1678-1685
(these include letters also preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale);
vol. iii., _Recherche des bouches du Mississipi et voyage à travers le
continent depuis les côtes du Texas jusqu’à Québec_.
[Illustration]
The later volumes (the Editor has seen in Mr. Parkman’s hands the
proofs of vols. iv. and v., and there is to be one more) pertain
to Iberville and the following century; but a volume of the early
cartography is promised as a completion of the publication. On the
issue of these three volumes Mr. Parkman in considerable part rewrote
his _Discovery of the Great West_, and republished it in 1879 as _La
Salle and the Discovery of the Great West_. In his Preface he speaks
of the collection of documents in Margry’s keeping “to which he had
not succeeded in gaining access,” and which, besides the papers in
his official charge, included others added by him from other public
archives and from private collections in France. “In the course of my
inquiries,” says Mr. Parkman, “I owed much to [M. Margry’s] friendly
aid; but his collections as a whole remained inaccessible, since he
naturally wished to be the first to make known the results of his
labors.”
[Illustration: LA SALLE.
This follows a design given in Gravier (pp. 1, 202), which is said
to be based on an engraving preserved in the Bibliothèque de Rouen,
entitled CAVILLI DE LA SALLE FRANÇOIS,—and is the only picture
meriting notice, except possibly a small vignette of which Gravier
gives a fac-simile in his _Cavelier de la Salle_. Mr. Parkman has a
photograph, given to him by Gravier, of a modern painting drawn from
the first of these two pictures. In the _Magazine of American History_,
May, 1882, there is an engraving, “after a photograph of the original
painting,” leading the reader to suppose a veritable original likeness
to have been followed, instead of this photograph of a made-up picture.]
It was fortunate that in regard to one point only this deprivation
had led Mr. Parkman astray in his earlier edition; and that was upon
La Salle’s failure to find the mouth of the Mississippi in 1684, and
the conduct therewith of Beaujeu. Mr. Parkman has testified to the
authenticity of the La Salle letters in the _North American Review_,
December, 1877, where (p. 428) he says: “The contents of these letters
were in good measure known through a long narrative compiled from them
by one of the writer’s friends, who took excellent care to put nothing
into it which could compromise him. All personalities are suppressed.
These letters of La Salle have never been used by any historical
writer.” Margry’s publication has been reviewed by J. Thoulet in the
_Bulletin de la Société de Géographie_, November and December, 1880,
where a modern map enables the reader to track the explorer’s course. A
sketch of this map is given on an earlier page.
The severest criticism of Margry’s publication has come from Dr.
Shea, in a tract entitled _The Bursting of Pierre Margry’s La Salle
Bubble_, New York, 1879,—a paper which first appeared in the _New
York Freeman’s Journal_. Margry is judged by his critic to have
unwarrantably extended the collection by repeating what had already
elsewhere been printed, sometimes at greater length.[672] The “bubble”
in question is the view long entertained by Margry that La Salle was
the real discoverer of the Mississippi, and which he has set forth at
different times in the following places:—
1. “Les Normands dans les vallées de l’Ohio et du Mississippi,” in the
_Journal general de l’instruction publique_, July-September, 1862,
placing the event in 1670-1671.
2. _Revue maritime et colonial_, Paris (1872), xxxiii. 555.
3. _La priorité de La Salle sur le Mississipi_, Paris, 1873,—a
pamphlet.
4. The preface to his _Découvertes_, etc., 1876.
5. A letter in the _American Antiquarian_ (Chicago, 1880), ii. 206,
which was addressed to the Wisconsin Historical Society (_Collections_,
ix. 108), and which first appeared in J. D. Butler’s translation in the
_State Journal_, Madison, Wisconsin, July 30, 1879.
Margry, who has wavered somewhat, first claimed that La Salle reached
the Mississippi by the Ohio in 1670; and later he has contended for the
route by the Illinois in 1671. He bases his claim upon four grounds:—
First, upon a _Récit d’un ami de l’Abbé de Galinée_, 1666-1678 (printed
in the _Découvertes_, etc., i. 342, 378),[673] which is without date,
but which Margry holds to be the work of Abbé Renaudot, derived from
La Salle in Paris in 1678, wherein it is stated that La Salle, after
parting with Dollier and Galinée, made a first expedition to the Ohio,
and a second by the Illinois to the Mississippi.
Second, upon a letter of La Salle’s niece, dated 1756 (i. 379), which
affirms that the writer of it possessed maps which had belonged to La
Salle in 1676, and that such maps showed that previous to that date he
had made two voyages of discovery, and that upon these maps the Colbert
(Mississippi) is put down.
Third, upon a letter of Frontenac in 1677 to Colbert (i. 324), which
places, as is alleged, the voyage of Joliet after that of La Salle;
but at the same time (ii. 285) he prints a paper of La Salle virtually
admitting Joliet’s priority.
Fourth, upon the general antagonism between the Jesuits, who espoused
Joliet’s claim, and the merchants, who were, with La Salle, the
adherents of the Sulpitians and Recollects.
Sides have been taken among scholars in regard to the irrefragability
of these evidences, but with a great preponderance of testimony against
their validity.
The principal supporter of Margry’s view (though Henri Martin has
adopted it) has been Gabriel Gravier in the following publications:—
1. _Découvertes et établissements de la Cavelier de la Salle de Rouen
dans l’Amérique du nord_, Paris, 1870.
2. _Cavelier de la Salle de Rouen_, Paris, 1871, p. 23. This work is in
good part a commentary on Parkman, to whom it is dedicated.
3. “La route du Mississipi,” in the _Compte rendu, Congrès des
Américanistes_, Nancy, 1878, placing it in 1666.
4. In _Magazine of American History_, viii. 305 (May, 1882).
Views in support of the prior discovery of Joliet and Marquette, and
opposed to the claim for La Salle, are given in the following places,
without enumerating Charlevoix, Sparks, and the other upholders of the
Joliet discovery, before Margry’s theory was advanced:—
1. Tailhan, as editor of Perrot’s _Sauvages_, Paris, 1864, p. 279.
2. Verreau, _Voyage de MM. Dollier et Galinée_, p. 59.
3. Parkman, _La Salle_.
4. Faillon, in his _Colonie Française en Canada_, iii. 312; while at
the same time he testifies to Margry’s labors in vol i. p. 24.
5. Harrisse, _Notes, etc., sur la Nouvelle France_, 1872, p. 125,
where he reviews the controversy; and again in the _Revue maritime et
coloniale_ (1872), xxxii. 642.
6. J. Brucker, _Jacques Marquette et la découverte de la vallée du
Mississipi_, Lyons, 1880, taken from _Les études réligieuses_, vol. iv.
7. H. H. Hurlbut, in _Magazine of American History_, September, 1882.
8. John G. Shea, in the Wisconsin Historical Society’s _Collections_,
vii. 111; and in the _Bursting of the La Salle Bubble_, already
referred to. In his edition of _Le Clercq_, ii. 89, he speaks of the
theory as “utterly absurd.”
FATHER LOUIS HENNEPIN
AND HIS REAL OR DISPUTED DISCOVERIES.
BY THE EDITOR.
THE life of this Recollect missionary is derived in its particulars
mainly from his own writings; and the details had never been set
forth in an orderly way till Dr. J. G. Shea in 1880 prefixed to a
new translation of Hennepin’s first book a satisfactory sketch. He
seems to have been born in Hainault, though precisely when does
not appear. Felix Van Hulst, in the title of his tract, gives the
date approximately: _Notice sur le Père Louis Hennepin, né à Ath_
(_Belgique_) _vers 1640_. Liege, 1845. He early joined the Franciscans,
served the Order in various places, travelled as he could, was inspired
with a desire to see the world, and felt the impulse strongest when,
at Calais, he listened to the narratives of sea-captains who had
returned from long voyages. This inclination prompted him to continued
missionary expeditions, and to attendance upon armies in their
campaigns. In 1675 Frontenac succeeded in his attempt to recall to
Canada the Recollects, as a foil to the Jesuits; and among the first of
that Order to go was Hennepin, who crossed the ocean in the same ship
with La Salle, the ambitious explorer, and De Laval, the new Bishop of
Quebec. According to his own account, Hennepin had his first quarrel
with La Salle about some girls who were on their way to reinforce the
family life of the new colony.[674]
La Salle enjoyed their dances, and Hennepin, as their spiritual guide,
kept them under restraint. This, at least, is the Recollect story of
the origin of La Salle’s enmity for the missionary.
From Quebec Hennepin continued his missionary wanderings, sometimes
to remote stations, and at one time, in the spring of 1677, among
the Iroquois,—not going, however, to Albany, as has been sometimes
asserted. (Cf. Brodhead’s _New York_, ii. 307; _Hist. Mag._ x. 268.)
Next he accompanied La Salle in his explorations west. Of Niagara he
offers us the earliest picture in his 1697 publication,—of which a
reduced fac-simile is here given. Others are in Gay’s _Pop. Hist.
U. S._, ii. 511; Shea’s _Hennepin_, p. 379, and in his _Le Clercq_,
ii. 112; and in the _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, vol. ii. no. 561. The
original cut was repeated in the later editions and translations
of Hennepin. These Falls had been indicated on Champlain’s map, in
1632, with the following note: “Sault d’eau au bout du Sault [Lac]
Sainct Louis fort hault, où plusiers sortes de poissons descendans
s’estourdissent.” This was from the natives’ accounts. Ragueneau, in
the _Relation_ of 1648, was the first to describe them, though they
had been known by report to the Jesuits some years earlier (Parkman’s
_Jesuits_, p. 142). Lalemant, in 1641, called them _Onguiaahra_.
Ragueneau gave them no definite altitude, but called them of “frightful
height.” Hennepin, in his 1683 book, calls them five hundred feet, and
in 1697 six hundred feet high, and describes a side-shoot on their
western verge which does not now exist. Sanson, in his map of 1657,
had somewhat simplified Ragueneau’s name into _Ongiara_; but Hennepin
gives the name in its present form. There is a great variety in the
early spelling of the name. (See _Canadian Journal_, 1870, p. 385.) The
word is of Iroquois origin, and its proper phonetic spelling is very
like the form now in use (Parkman, _La Salle_, p. 126; O’Callaghan,
_Col. Doc., index_, 465). Hennepin had also been anticipated in a
brief notice by Gendron, in his _Quelques Particularites_, etc., 1659.
Hennepin’s account is also translated in the _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, v.
47. His engraving was reproduced, in 1702, in Campanius’ work on New
Sweden.
[Illustration]
Hennepin accompanied La Salle to the point where Fort Crèvecœur was
built, on the Illinois, and parting from La Salle here in February,
1680, he pursued his further wandering down the Illinois to the
Mississippi, and thence up to the Falls of St. Anthony, which were
named by him in reference to his being a Recollect of the province of
St. Anthony in Artois. On the 3d of July, 1880, the bi-centenary of
the discovery of these Falls was observed, when C. K. Davis delivered
an historical address. Thence, after being captured by the Sioux and
rescued by a party under Du Lhut,[675] Hennepin made his way to the
Wisconsin, passed by Green Bay, and reached Quebec. He soon after
returned to France, where, on the 3d of September, 1682, he obtained
the royal permission to print his first book, which was issued from the
press Jan. 5, 1683.
From this point his story[676] can be best followed in connection with
the history of his books, and as they are rare and curious, it has been
thought worth while to point out a few of the repositories of copies,
which are indicated by the following heavy-faced letters:—
=BA.= Boston Athenæum.
=BPL.= Boston Public Library.
=C.= Library of Congress.
=CB.= Carter-Brown Library, Providence.
=HC.= Harvard College Library.
=HCM.= Henry C. Murphy.
=L.= Lenox Library, New York.
For full titles, see the Bibliography in Shea’s edition of the
_Description of Louisiana_, and the article “Hennepin,” in Sabin’s
_Dictionary_. Cf. also Brunet, _Supplément_, 598.
I. DESCRIPTION DE LA LOUISIANE.
This first book was entitled _Description de la Louisiane nouvellement
découverte au Sud-Oüest de la Nouvelle France. Les Mœurs des Sauvages.
Par le R. P. Louis Hennepin_, Paris, 1683. Pages 12, 312, 107. Some
copies are dated 1684.
COPIES: =BA.=, =C.=, =CB.=, =HC.=, =L.= (both dates).
REFERENCES: Shea (ed. of Hennepin), nos. 1, 2; Sabin, _Dictionary_,
no. 31,347; Ternaux, _Bibliothèque Amér._ no. 985; Harrisse, _Notes
sur la Nouv. France_, nos. 150, 352; _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, vol.
ii. no. 1,266, with fac-simile of title; _Hist. Mag._, vol. ii. no.
24 (by Mr. Lenox), 346; Dufossé, _Americana_, 70 francs, with genuine
map, and 40 or 50 francs with fac-simile; Leclerc, _Bibl. Americana_,
nos. 897, 898 at 90 and 150 francs; Rich, _Catalogue_ (1832), no. 402,
12_s._
The map, of which a section is herewith given in fac-simile, measures
10.2 X 17.2, “Guerard inven. et fecit. Roussel sculpsit,” and is often
wanting. Cf. Harrisse, no. 352; _Hist. Mag._, vol. ii. 24.
Harrisse (no. 219; also see no. 238) cites a map preserved in the
Dépôt des Cartes de la Marine, which seems to embody the results of
Hennepin’s discoveries.
The next edition (Paris, 1688) shows the same pagination, with some
verbal changes in the text, and is accompanied by the same map.
COPIES: =B.A.=, =CB.=, =HC.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 3; Sabin, no. 31,348; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no.
1,354; _Hist. Mag._ vol. ii. p. 346; Harrisse, no. 160; O’Callaghan,
_Catalogue_, no. 1,068; Beckford, _Catalogue_, no. 674, bought by
Quaritch, who advertised it at £3 3_s._
[Illustration: HENNEPIN, 1683.
An extract from the _Carte de la Nouvelle France et de la Louisiane,
nouvellement découverte, dediée au Roy l’an 1683_. _Par le Révérend
Père Louis Hennepin, Missionaire Recollect et Notaire Apostolique_,
belonging to the _Description de la Louisiane_, 1683. There is a full
fac-simile in Shea’s translation of this book, and another one was made
in 1876 by Pilinski, in Paris (36 copies). The letter A near a tree
signifies “Armes du Roy telle qu’elle sont gravée sur l’escorce d’un
chesne.” This map (Harrisse, no. 352) seems to resemble closely a map
described by Harrisse (no. 219), as indicating the discoveries of Du
Lhut, of which there is a copy in the Barlow Collection.]
The following translations may be noted:—
* * * * *
ENGLISH.—Some portions of Hennepin’s first work had been translated
in Shea’s _Discovery of the Mississippi_, pp. 107-145; but no English
translation of the whole work appeared till Dr. Shea edited a version
in 1880, comparing Hennepin’s text with the second publication of that
missionary (issued in 1697) with the La Salle documents, published by
Margry, and with other contemporaneous papers.
* * * * *
DUTCH.—The engraved title, _Ontdekking van Louisania_; the printed
title, _Beschryving van Louisania_. It appeared at Amsterdam in 1688,
under the same covers with a Dutch version of Denys’ _Coast of North
America_, accompanied by a map which is a reduction of the map of
the 1683 edition, and is called “Kaart van nieuw Vrankrijk en van
Louisania;” together with four plates.
COPIES: =CB.=, =HC.=, =L.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 5; Sabin, no. 31,357; Harrisse, no. 161;
Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,355, with fac-simile of title;
_Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 24; O’Callaghan, no. 1,069;
Stevens, _Historical Collections_, vol. i. no. 1,433; Muller, _Books
on America_, 1870, no. 908, and 1877, no. 1,395.
It is usually priced at from $8 to $10.
* * * * *
GERMAN.—There were two editions,—_Beschreibung der Landschaft
Louisiana_, to which was appended a German version of Marquette’s and
Joliet’s exploration, published at Nuremberg in 1689. It should have
two maps.
COPIES: =CB.=, =L.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 6; Ternaux, no. 1,041; Carter-Brown, vol. ii no.
1,379; O’Callaghan, no. 1,071; Muller, 1877, no. 1,399.
The other German edition of the same title appeared at Nuremberg in
1692.
COPIES: =CB.=, =L.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 7; Harrisse, no. 163; _Historical Magazine_,
vol. ii. p. 24; Sabin, no. 31,364.
* * * * *
ITALIAN.—_Descrizione della Luigiana._ Rendered by Casimiro Freschot,
and published at Bologna in 1686, with a map.
COPIES: =CB.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 4; Harrisse, no. 157; Sabin, no. 31,356;
_Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 346; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no.
1,326; Ternaux, no. 1,012; Leclerc, no. 900; 60 francs.
An abridgment was printed in _Il Genio Vagante_, Parma, 1691, with a
map, “Nuova Francia e Luigiana.” Cf. Harrisse, no. 365.
In this earliest work of Hennepin the Mississippi, it will be seen by
the map, forms no certain connection with the Gulf of Mexico, but is
connected by a dotted line, and there is no claim for explorations
further south than the map indicates. Hennepin’s later publications
have raised doubts as to the good faith of his narrative of discoveries
on the Upper Mississippi. Harrisse (no. 150), for instance, says “Cette
_Relation_ de 1683 n’est en réalité qu’une pâle copie d’un des mémoires
de Cavelier de la Salle;” and goes on to deny to Hennepin the priority
of giving the name of Louisiana to the country. La Salle and others of
his contemporaries threw out insinuations as to his veracity, or at
least cautioned others against his tendency to exaggerate. (Cf. Neill,
_Writings of Hennepin_.) The publication of an anonymous account of La
Salle’s whole expedition in Margry’s _Découvertes et Établissements
des Français_, has enabled Dr. Shea, in his edition of Hennepin,
to contest Margry’s views of Hennepin’s plagiarism, and to compare
the two narratives critically; and he comes to the conclusion that
probably Hennepin was La Salle’s scribe before they parted, and that he
certainly contributed directly or indirectly to La Salle’s despatches
what pertains to Hennepin’s subsequent independent exploration,—thus
making the borrowing to be on the part of the anonymous writer, who, if
he were La Salle, did certainly no more than was becoming in the master
of the expedition to combine the narratives of his subordinates. It is
Shea’s opinion, however, that the Margry document was not written by
La Salle, but by some compiler in Paris, who used Hennepin’s printed
book rather than his notes or manuscript reports. Margry claims that
this _Relation officielle de l’enterprise de La Salle, de 1678 à 1681_,
was compiled by Bernou for presentation to Colbert. Parkman thinks,
as opposed to Shea’s view, that Hennepin knew of the document, and
incorporated many passages from it into his book (_La Salle_, pp. 150,
262). Dr. Shea sided with the detractors of Hennepin in his earlier
_Discovery of the Mississippi_; but in this later book he makes fair
amends for what he now considers his hasty conclusions then. Cf.
further Sparks’s _Life of La Salle_, and the _North American Review_,
January, 1845. Mr. Parkman’s conclusion is that this early book of
Hennepin is “comparatively truthful.”
II. NOUVELLE DÉCOUVERTE.
According to Hennepin’s own story, some time after his first book was
published, he incurred the displeasure of the Provincial of his Order
by refusing to return to America, and was in more ways than one so
pursued by his superior that in the end he threw himself on the favor
of William III. of England, whom he had met at the Hague. Hennepin
searched Amsterdam for a publisher of his new venture, but had to take
it to Utrecht, where it came out, in 1697, with a fulsome dedication
to the English king. It is called in the printed title (the engraved
title is abridged): _Nouvelle Découverte d’un très grand Pays, situé
dans l’Amérique, entre le Nouveau Mexique et la Mer glaciale_, Utrecht,
1797, pp. 70, 506, with two maps and two plates, one being the earliest
view of Niagara Falls, as given on p. 86.
[Illustration: HENNEPIN, 1697.
This is an extract from the second of Hennepin’s maps, _Carte d’un
très grand pays entre le Nouveau Mexique et la Mer glaciale, dediée à
Guillaume III.... à Utreght_. The same plate was used in later editions
(1698, 1704, 1711, etc.), with additions of many names, and some
topographical changes, and alterations of place of publication. Those
of 1698 have _à Utreght_ in some cases, and in others _à Amsterdam_.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: HENNEPIN, 1697.
Extract from _Carte d’un très grand pais nouvellement découvert dans
l’Amérique septentrionale, entre le Nouveau Mexique et la Mer glaciale,
avec le Cours du Grand Fleuve Meschasipi ... à Utreght_. The same
plate was used for the editions, _à Leiden_, 1704, etc. The plate was
re-engraved with English names for the English editions.]
COPIES: =BA.=, =CB.=, =HC.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 1; Sabin, no. 31,349; Ternaux, no. 1,095;
Harrisse, no. 175; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,513; _Historical
Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 346; Beckford, no. 675, bought by Quaritch, and
advertised by him at £4 4_s._; Stevens, vol. i. no. 1,434; Leclerc,
no. 902, 80 francs; Harrassowitz, _Catalogue_, 1883, no. 58, 50 marks;
Brinley, _Catalogue_, no. 4,491. It is usually priced in English
catalogues at two or three guineas.
The portions repeated in this book from the _Description de la
Louisiane_ are enlarged, and the “Mœurs des Sauvages” is omitted.
It will be observed that in both of the maps of 1697, extracts
from which are given herewith, the Mississippi River is marked as
continuing its course to the Gulf. This change is made to illustrate an
interpolation in the text (pp. 249-312), borrowed from Father Membré’s
Journal of La Salle’s descent of the river, as given in Le Clercq’s
_Premier Établissement de la Foi_, p. 153. Sparks, in his _Life of
La Salle_, was the first to point out this correspondence. Mr. J. H.
Perkins, reviewing Sparks’s book in the _North American Review_ in
January, 1839 (reprinted in his _Memoir and Writings_, vol. ii.), on
the “Early French Travellers in the West,” referring to the partial
statements of the distrust of Hennepin in Andrew Ellicott’s _Journal_,
and in Stoddard’s _Sketches of Louisiana_, makes, for the first time,
as he thinks, a thorough critical statement of the grounds “for
thinking the _Reverend Father_ so great a liar.” Further elucidation
of the supposed theft was made by Dr. Shea in his _Discovery of the
Mississippi_, etc., p. 105, where, p. 83, he translated for the first
time into English Membré’s Journal. The Membré narrative is much the
same as a _Relation de la Découverte de l’Embouchure de la Rivière
Mississippi, faite par le Sieur de la Salle, l’année passée_, 1682,
preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de la Marine, and printed in
Thomassy’s _Géologie pratique de la Louisiane_. Gravier, p. 180, holds
it to be the work of La Salle himself (Boimare, _Text explicatif pour
accompagner la première planche historique relative à la Louisiane_,
Paris, 1868; cf. Gravier’s Appendix, no. viii). That there was a fraud
on Hennepin’s part has been generally held ever since Sparks made his
representations. Bancroft calls Hennepin’s journal “a lie.” Brodhead
calls it an audacious falsehood. Parkman (_La Salle_, p. 226) deems it
a fabrication, and has critically examined Hennepin’s inconsistencies.
Gravier classes his narrative with Gulliver’s.
The excuse given in the _Nouvelle Découverte_ for the tardy appearance
of this Journal is, that fear of the hostility of La Salle having
prevented its appearance in the _Description de la Louisiane_, that
explorer’s death rendered the suppression of it no longer necessary. It
is, moreover, proved that passages from Le Clercq are also appropriated
in describing the natives and the capture of Quebec in 1628. The reply
to this was that Le Clercq stole from a copy of Hennepin’s Journal,
which had been lent to Le Roux in Quebec. These revelations led Shea
seriously to question in his _Mississippi_ if Hennepin had ever seen
the upper parts of that river, and to suspect that Hennepin may have
learned what he wrote from Du Lhut. Harrisse, p. 176, brings forward
some new particulars about Hennepin’s relations with Du Lhut.
Dr. Shea’s later views, as expressed in his English translation (1880)
of the _Description de la Louisiane_ (1683), is that Hennepin’s
manuscript or revamped copy of his earlier book, as prepared for the
printer by himself, was subjected to the manipulations of an ignorant
and treacherous editor, who made these insertions to produce a more
salable book, and that Hennepin was not responsible for it in the
form in which it appeared. Shea’s arguments to prove this opposite
of the generally received opinion are based on inherent evidence in
the insertions that Hennepin could not have written them, and on the
material evidences of these questionable portions of the book having
been printed at a later time than the rest of it, and in different
type. The only rejoinder yet made to this exculpation is by Mr. E. D.
Neill, in a tract on _The Writings of Louis Hennepin_, read before the
Minnesota Historical Society in November, 1880, in which the conclusion
is reached that “nothing has been discovered to change the verdict of
two centuries, that Louis Hennepin, Recollect Franciscan, was deficient
in Christian manhood.”
The _Nouvelle Découverte_ was reset and reissued in 1698 at Amsterdam,
with the same maps and a new title.
COPIES: =CB.=, =L.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 2; Sabin, no. 31,350; Harrisse, no. 176;
Ternaux, no. 1,110; O’Callaghan, no. 1,073; Muller, 1877, no. 3,666;
Sparks, _Catalogue_, no. 1,211; Rich, 1832, 12s.; Carter-Brown, vol.
ii. 1,538; _Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. pp. 24,346.
There was another edition, _Voyage ou Nouvelle Découverte_, at
Amsterdam in 1704, with the same maps and additional plates, to which
was appended La Borde’s _Voyage_.
COPIES: =BA.=, =CB.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 3; Sabin, no. 31,352; Rich, 1830, no. 8;
_Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 347; Beckford, no. 676; Leclerc,
no. 905, 60 francs; Stevens, vol. i. no. 1,436; Carter-Brown, vol.
iii. no. 52.
The Hague and Leyden editions of the same year (1704) had an engraved
title, _Voyage curieux ... qui contient une Nouvelle Découverte_, but
were evidently from the same type, and also have the La Borde appended.
COPIES: =CB.=, =L.=, _HCM._
REFERENCES: Shea, nos. 4, 5; Sabin, no. 31,353; _Historical Magazine_,
vol. ii. 25.
The Amsterdam edition of 1711 was called _Voyages curieux et nouveaux
de Messieurs Hennepin et de la Borde_, with oblong title, folded in,
which seems to be the only difference from the 1704 editions.
COPIES: =BA.=, =CB.=, =HC.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 6; Sabin, no. 31,354; Carter-Brown, vol. iii.
no. 153.
In 1712 another Amsterdam edition was called _Voyage ou Nouvelle
Découverte_.
COPY: =CB.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 7; Sabin, no. 31,355; _Historical Magazine_,
vol. ii. p. 347; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 168; Stevens, vol. i. no.
1,438.
Hennepin’s book also appeared in the third edition, at Amsterdam
(1737), of Bernard’s _Recueil de Voyages au Nord_, vol. ix., with a map
called “Le Cours du fleuve Mississipi, 1737.” Cf. Shea, no. 8; Sabin,
no. 4,936; _Historical Magazine_, ii. 25. It also appeared at Amsterdam
in 1720, in _Relations de la Louisiane et du Fleuve Mississippi_
(Dufossé, 1878, no. 4,577), and again in 1737 in connection with a
translation of Garcilasso de la Vega (Dr. O’Callaghan in _Historical
Magazine_, ii. 24). An abridgment appeared in Paris, in 1720, under the
title, _Description de la Louisiane, par le Chevalier Bonrepos_, pp. 45
(Lenox in _Historical Magazine_, ii. 25).
The following translations may be noted:—
* * * * *
DUTCH.—1. _Nieuwe Ontdekkinge_, etc., Amsterdam, 1699.
COPY: =CB.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 9; Sabin, no. 31,359; Harrisse, no. 183.
2. _Nieuwe Entdekkinge_, etc., Amsterdam, 1702. It follows the 1697
French edition, with the same maps and plates, and has Capiné’s book on
the Spanish West Indies appended.
COPIES: =BA.=, =CB.=, =L.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 10; Sabin, no. 31,360; Lenox in _Historical
Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 25; Muller, 1870, no. 912, and 1877, no. 1,397;
Brinley, no. 4,493; O’Callaghan, no. 1,076; Carter-Brown, vol. iii.
no. 23.
3. _Aenmerkelyke Voyagie_, etc., Leyden, 1704.
COPY: =CB.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 11; Sabin, no. 31,361; Carter-Brown, vol. iii.
nos. 53, 54; Stevens, vol. i. no. 1,437; Muller, 1870, no. 913, and
1877, no. 1,398.
4. _Aanmerkkelyke_ _Voyagie_, etc., Rotterdam, 1704. It is usually
found with Benzoni’s _West-Indise Voyagien_, and also in Van der Aa’s
Collection of Voyages, 1704.
COPIES: =C.=, =CB.=, =L.=
REFERENCES: Shea, nos. 12, 13; Sabin, no. 31,362; Lenox in _Historical
Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 25.
5. _Nieuwe Ontdekkinge_, etc. Amsterdam, 1722.
COPY: =CB.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 14; Sabin, no. 31,363.
* * * * *
ENGLISH.—_Discovery of a Large, Rich, and Plentiful Country_, etc.,
London, 1720.
COPIES: =BA.=, =CB.=, =HC.= REFERENCES: Shea, no. 2; Sabin, nos.
20,247, 31,373; _Historical Magazine_, vol. i. p. 347; Rich, no. 12;
Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 267.
This is an abridgment.
* * * * *
GERMAN.—1. _Neue Entdeckung_, etc. Bremen, 1699.
COPIES: =CB.=, =L.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 15; _Historical Magazine_, vol. i. p. 347,
vol. ii. p. 25; Sabin, no. 31,367; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,572;
Harrisse, no. 185; Stevens, vol. i. no. 1,435.
2. _Beschreibung der Grosser Flusse Mississipi. Dritte Auflage_,
Leipzig, 1720.
COPY: =L.=
REFERENCES: Lenox in _Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 25.
3. _Neue Reise Beschreibung_, etc., Nürnberg, 1739.
COPY: =CB.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 16; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 604.
4. _Neue Entdeckung_, etc., Bremen, 1742.
COPY: =CB.=
REFERENCE: Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 708.
* * * * *
SPANISH.—_Relaçion_, etc., Brusselas, 1699.
COPIES: =HC.=, =CB.=, =L.= An abridgment by Sebastian Fernandez de
Medrano.
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 1; Sabin, no. 31,374; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no.
1,573; Lenox in _Historical Magazine_, vol. ii. p. 25; Ternaux, no.
1,126.
It has the same map with the 1697 French edition, with an Italian
label, “Carta geografica de un Pais,” etc., pasted over the French
title.
III. NOUVEAU VOYAGE.
It has been customary to bestow upon this volume a similar distrust as
upon the preceding; but Dr. Shea contends that the luckless treatment
of the _Nouvelle Découverte_ by a presumptuous editor was also repeated
with this. It was entitled, _Nouveau Voyage d’un Pais plus grand que
l’Europe_, Utrecht, 1698. The work was made up from Le Clercq, and
included the treatise on the Indians which had been omitted in the
_Nouvelle Découverte_, of which this volume may be considered the
supplement.
COPIES: =BA.=, =CB.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 1; Sabin, no. 31,351; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no.
1,537; Harrisse, no. 177; Beckford, no. 677, bought by Quaritch, who
priced it at £4 4_s._; Leclerc, no. 904, 70 francs; Rich, no. 455;
Ternaux. no. 1,111.
The _Nouveau Voyage_ was also included in an abridged form in the
second (1720) and third (1734) editions of the _Recueil de Voyages au
Nord_, published by Bernard at Amsterdam. Cf. Shea, 2 and 3.
[Illustration]
It was also issued in the following translations:—
* * * * *
DUTCH.—Engraved title, _Reyse door nieuwe Ondekte Landen_. Printed
title, _Aenmerckelycke Historische Reijs Beschryvinge_, Utrecht, 1698.
The map reads, “Carte d’un Nouveau Monde entre Le Nouveau Mexique et la
Mer glaciale. Gasp. Bouttals fecit.”
COPIES: =BA.=, =CB.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 4; Sabin, no. 31,358; Carter-Brown, vol. ii.
no. 1,539, with fac-simile of title; _Historical Magazine_, vol. ii.
p. 347; Harrisse, no. 179; Trömel, no. 425; O’Callaghan, no. 1,075;
Muller, 1877, no. 1,396.
* * * * *
ENGLISH.—In the _Archæologia Americana_, vol. i.
* * * * *
GERMAN, I.—_Neue Reise Beschreibung, übersetzt durch M. J. G. Langen_,
Bremen, 1698.
COPY: =CB.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 5.; Sabin, no. 31,365; Ternaux, no. 1,049, of
doubtful date; Harrisse, no. 165; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,540.
2. _Reisen und seltsehme Begebenheiten_, etc., Bremen, 1742.
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 6; Sabin, no. 31,369.
IV. COMBINATION.
The _Nouvelle Découverte_ and the _Nouveau Voyage_ were combined
in an English translation issued under the following title: _A new
Discovery of a Vast Country in America, extending above four thousand
miles between New France and New Mexico_, etc., London, 1698. It
contains—part i., a translation of the _Nouvelle Découverte_; part
ii., in smaller type and new paging, a version of the _Nouveau Voyage_;
the rest of the volume in the type of part i. and continuing its
paging, being an account of Marquette’s voyages. Another edition of the
same year shows a slight change of title, with alterations in part i.
and part ii. rewritten. Still another issue conforms in title to the
earliest, but in body, with a slight correction, to the second edition.
The engraved title of the first edition is given herewith. This picture
is a re-engraving reversed of the one on the title of the _Nouvelle
Découverte_ of 1697.
COPIES: =BPL.=, =CB.=, =H.C.=
REFERENCES: Shea, nos. 1, 2, 3; Sabin, nos. 31,370, 31,371; Ternaux,
nos. 1,010, 1,119; _Historical Magazine_, vol. i. p. 347; Field,
_Indian Bibliography_, no. 685; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. nos. 1,535,
1,536; Rich, no. 456; Brinley, no. 4,492; Harrisse, no. 181; _Menzies
Catalogue_, no. 915.
In the next year (1699) there was a reprint of the second issue of the
preceding year.
COPY: =BA.=
REFERENCES: Shea, no. 4; Sabin, no. 31,372; O’Callaghan, no. 1,074;
and _Historical Magazine_, vol. ii p. 74; Menzies, no. 916.
BARON LA HONTAN.
A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL NOTE BY THE EDITOR.
LA HONTAN, a young Gascon, born about 1667, had come to Canada in
1683, and from being a common soldier, had by his ability risen to
an officer’s position. He became a favorite of Frontenac, and was
selected by him to bear the despatch to Paris which conveyed an
account of Phips’s failure before Quebec in 1690. He was not long
after made deputy-governor of Placentia, where he quarrelled with his
superior and fled to France; and here, fearing arrest, he was obliged
to escape beyond its boundaries. After the Peace of Ryswick he sought
reinstatement, but was not successful; and it is alleged that his book,
which he now published, was in some measure the venting of his spleen.
It appeared in 1703, at La Haye, as _Nouveaux Voyages dans l’Amérique
septentrionale, qui contiennent une Relation des différens Peuples
que y habitent_, in two volumes (the second entitled _Mémoires de
l’Amérique septentrionale, ou la suite des Voyages_), with twenty-six
maps and plates (Sabin, vol. x. nos. 38,635-38,638; Carter-Brown, vol.
iii. no. 36; Quaritch, 25 shillings; Leclerc, no. 737, 40 francs).
Another edition, in somewhat larger type and better engravings, with a
vignette in place of the sphere on the title, appeared the same year.
Dr. Shea is inclined to think this the authorized edition, and the
other a pirated one, with reversed cuts. La Hontan, being in London,
superintended an edition published there the same year in English,
called _New Voyages to North America_ (in Harvard College Library;
cf. _Brinley Catalogue_, no. 101; Field, _Indian Bibliography_, no.
852; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 39), likewise in two volumes, but
containing in addition a Dialogue between La Hontan and a Huron Indian
(the Rat), which had not been included in the Hague edition, and which
was the vehicle of some religious scepticism. There were thirteen
plates in vol. i., and eleven in vol. ii., and La Hontan speaks of
them as being much better than those of the Holland edition (Sabin,
vol. x. no. 38,644). This same Dialogue was issued separately the next
year (1704) at Amsterdam in French,—_Dialogue du Baron de La Hontan
et d’un Sauvage dans l’Amérique_; and also, with a changed title
(_Supplément aux Voyages du Baron La Hontan_), as the third volume or
“suite” of the _Voyages_, and sometimes with added pages devoted to
travels in Portugal and Denmark (Sabin, vol. x. nos. 38,633, 38,634,
38,637; Field, no. 853; Leclerc, nos. 738, 739; Muller, _Books on
America_, 1872, no. 864). These editions are found with the dates also
of 1704 and 1705. What is called a “seconde Édition, revue, corrigée,
et augmentée,” with twenty-seven plates (but not from the same coppers,
however, with the earlier issues), and omitting the “Carte générale,”
appeared likewise at La Haye in 1705 and 1706. This is professedly
“almost recast, to make the style more pure, concise, and simple,
with the Dialogues rewritten.” The Denmark and Portugal voyage being
omitted, it is brought within two volumes, the second of which is still
called _Mémoires_, etc. (Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 68). There were
later French editions in 1707, 1709, and 1715, and at Amsterdam in
1721, with the “suite,” dated 1728, three volumes in all, and sometimes
all three are dated 1728; and still other editions are dated 1731 and
1741 (Sabin, vol. x. no. 38,640, who says it is quite impossible to
make a clear statement of all the varieties of these several editions;
Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 689). The English version appeared again
at London in 1735 (Menzies, no. 1,178; Brinley, no. 101; Sabin, vol.
x. nos. 38,645, 38,646, who says there are various imprints; and it is
also included in Pinkerton’s _Voyages_, vol. xiii.). There are also
a German edition, _Des beruhmten Herrn Baron de La Hontan Neueste
Reisen_, 1709 (Sabin, vol. x. no. 38,647; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no.
123; Stevens, _Bibl. Hist._, no. 2,505), and a Dutch, _Reizen van den
Baron van La Hontan_, 1739 (Sabin, vol. x. no. 38,648; Stevens, no.
2,506).
[Illustration: PART OF LA HONTAN’S MAP.
This is the western part of the _Carte Générale de Canada_, which
appeared in the _Nouveaux Voyages_, La Haye, 1709, vol. ii., and was
re-engraved in his _Mémoires_, Amsterdam, 1741, vol. iii.]
[Illustration: PART OF LA HONTAN’S MAP.
A middle section from his “Carte Générale de Canada,” in his _Nouveaux
Voyages_, La Haye, 1709, vol. ii.; re-engraved in the Amsterdam, 1741,
edition of the _Mémoires_, vol. iii.]
[Illustration: LA HONTAN’S MAP.
A fac-simile of the frontispiece to La Hontan’s _New Voyages_, London,
1703. It was less carefully drawn in the re-engraving of smaller size
for the _Mémoires de l’Amérique_, vol. ii., Amsterdam; and still
another plate of the same map will be found in the 1709 and 1715 La
Haye editions.]
The book is thought to have been edited by Nicolas Gueudeville; or at
least his hand is usually recognized in the customary third volume
of some of the editions. Faribault (p. 76) says that a bookseller in
Amsterdam knew that the Dialogue was added by Gueudeville, in whose
_Atlas_, Amsterdam, 1719, as well as in Corneille’s _Geographical
Dictionary_, the accounts given of La Hontan’s Rivière Longue are
incorporated.
[Illustration: LA HONTAN’S RIVIERE LONGUE.
Fac-simile of the map in the _Nouveaux Voyages_, La Haye, 1709, i. 136.
He reports that the river was called by some the Dead River, because of
its sluggish current.]
As early as 1715-1716 there was a general discrediting of the story of
La Hontan, as will be seen by letters addressed by Bobé to De l’Isle,
the French geographer, and printed in the _Historical Magazine_,
iii. 231, 232; but the English geographer, Herman Moll, in his maps
between 1710 and 1720, was under La Hontan’s influence. Another English
cartographer, John Senex (1710), accepted the La Hontan story with
considerable hesitation, and later rejected it. Daniel Coxe, in his
_Carolana_ (1727), quite unreservedly accepted it; and the Long River
appears as Moingona in Popple’s _Atlas_, in 1733.
The German geographer, Homann, of Nuremberg, was in some degree
influenced; and the French cartographer De l’Isle sometimes accepted
these alleged discoveries, and again discarded them; but the careful
work of Bellin, in Charlevoix’s _Nouvelle France_, did much to relegate
La Hontan to oblivion. Charlevoix himself says: “The great liberty
which La Hontan gives his pen has contributed greatly to make his
book read by people not informed to separate truth from falsehood. It
fails to teach the well-informed, and confuses others. The episode
of the voyage up the Long River is as fabulous as the Barataria of
Sancho Panza.” (Cf. Shea’s ed., i. 86, with Shea’s note, iii. 286.)
The Long River some years later, however, figured in the map which
illustrates Samuel Engel’s _Extraits raisonnés des Voyages faits dans
les parties septentrionales_, published at Lausanne, and again in 1765,
and again in 1779, and of which there is also a German translation.
At a later date Carver accepted the accounts of this western river
as genuine, and identified it with the St. Peter’s,—a belief which
Long again, in his _Expedition to St. Peter’s River_, wholly rejected.
(Cf. also J. H. Perkins in the_ North American Review_ (1839), vol.
xlviii. no. 98, where it is thought possible; and the paper by H.
Scadding in the _Canadian Journal_, 2d series, vol. xiii. pp. 240,
396.) Parkman expresses the present view of scholars when he says (_La
Salle_, p. 458) that La Hontan’s account of the Long River is a sheer
fabrication; but he did not, like Hennepin, add slander and plagiarism
to mendacity. Again, in his _Frontenac_ (p. 105), he calls La Hontan
“a man in advance of his time, for he had the caustic, sceptical,
and mocking spirit which a century later marked the approach of the
great Revolution. He usually told the truth when he had no motive to
do otherwise, and yet was capable at times of prodigious mendacity,”
for his account of what “he saw in the colony is commonly in accord
with the best contemporary evidence.” There are some exceptions to
this view. Gravier speaks of La Hontan as “de bonne foi et de jugement
sain”!
CHAPTER VI.
THE JESUITS, RECOLLECTS, AND THE INDIANS.
BY JOHN GILMARY SHEA, LL.D.
AT the time of the discovery of this portion of the northern continent,
the missionary spirit was active in the Catholic Church. The labors of
the earlier monks had been revived and continued in the East by the
new zeal of the orders of friars, especially of the Franciscan and
Dominican Fathers. The earlier voyages of explorations from Cabot’s
day were accompanied by priests; and as soon as the condition and
character of the inhabitants were known, projects were formed for their
conversion. This work was looked upon as a duty by the kings of Spain,
Portugal, and France, as well as by the hierarchy and religious orders.
Coeval with the Spanish and French attempts to settle on the coast,
were missionary efforts, often pushed with wonderful zeal and courage
far into the interior by intrepid apostles, who, trusting their lives
to Indian guides, sought fields of labor.
The mission lines on the map meet and cross, as, undeterred by the
death of pioneers, others took up the task. In 1526, Dominicans reared
a chapel on the banks of the James in Virginia; in 1539, the Italian
Franciscan Mark, from Nice, penetrated to New Mexico; and soon after,
Father Padilla, of the same order, died by the hands of the Indians
near the waters of the Missouri. By 1559 Dominicans were traversing the
territories of the Mobilian tribes from Pensacola to the Mississippi;
and when Melendez founded St. Augustine, it became a mission centre
whence the Jesuit missionaries threaded the Atlantic coast to
Chesapeake Bay and the banks of the Rappahannock, before they left that
field to the Franciscans, who dotted Florida and Georgia with their
mission chapels.
The same spirit was seen pervading France, where the conversion of the
Indians of the New World was regarded as a duty of the highest order.
One of the first traces that we find of French voyages to the northern
coast is the mention in an early edition of the Chronicle of Eusebius,
in 1508, that Indians who had been brought from the new-found land
received baptism within the walls of a cathedral in France.
Though the introduction of Calvinism led to the destruction of many
a convent and shrine, and thinned by death the ranks of the mission
orders, the zeal for the conversion of the Indians survived the wars
of religion. Soon after Poutrincourt began his settlement in Acadia,
it was made a reproach to him that nothing had been done for the
conversion of the natives. He addressed a letter to the Pope, as if
to put the fact of his orthodoxy beyond all question; and when it was
proposed to send out Jesuit missionaries to labor among the Indians, he
caused twenty-five of the natives to be baptized in token of his zeal
for their spiritual welfare.
The establishment of a Jesuit mission was, however, decided upon. On
the 12th of June, 1611, Fathers Peter Biard and Enemond Masse reached
Port Royal. Some difficulties had been thrown in their way, and others
met them in the petty settlement. They turned at once to study the
Micmac language, so as to begin their mission labors among that nation
of Algonquins. The aged Membertou, who had acquired some French, was
their interpreter and first convert. Biard visited all the coast as
far as the Kennebec, and tried to give some ideas of Christianity to
the Abenakis on that river. Finding that little could be done at Port
Royal, where the settlers hampered rather than aided their efforts,
the Jesuits projected an independent mission settlement elsewhere.
Their protector, Madame de Guercheville, obtained from the French king
a grant of all the coast from the St. Lawrence to Florida. A vessel
was sent out, the missionaries were taken on board, and a settlement
was begun on Mount Desert Island. There a cross was planted, and Mass
said at a rustic altar. But the Jesuits were not to carry out their
mission projects. English vessels under Argall, from Virginia, attacked
the ship and settlement of St. Savior; a Jesuit laybrother was killed;
the rest of the settlers were sent to France or carried prisoners
to Virginia. Thus ended the first Jesuit mission begun under French
auspices.[677]
Meanwhile Champlain had succeeded in establishing a settlement on the
St. Lawrence, and had penetrated to Lake Champlain and the rapids of
the Ottawa. On all sides were tribes “living like brute beasts, without
law, without religion, without God.” His religious zeal was quickened;
for Quebec itself was destitute of ministers of religion. The
Recollects, a reformed branch of the Franciscan order, were invited to
enter the field. They accepted the mission, and in May, 1615, four of
the Gray Friars landed at Quebec. Father John Dolbeau at once began a
mission among the Montagnais,—the tribe occupying that portion of the
St. Lawrence valley,—and wintered with them in their wandering hunter
life, enduring all its hardships, and learning their language and
ideas. The friendly Wyandots, from the shores of a far distant lake,
were the tribe assigned to Father Joseph le Caron, and to the palisaded
towns of this more civilized race he boldly ventured, without waiting
for Champlain. In the summer of 1615 he set up his altar in a new bark
lodge in the Huron town of Caragouha, near Thunder Bay, and began to
learn a new strange tongue, so as to teach the flock around him.
The Recollects had thus undertaken to evangelize two races, who,
with their kindred, extended from the ocean to the Mississippi, from
the Chesapeake and Ohio to the frozen lands of the Esquimaux. Their
languages, differing from all known to European scholars in vocabulary,
forms, and the construction of sentences, offered incredible
difficulties. The ideas these Indians held of a future state were so
obscure, that it was not easy to find enough of natural religion by
which to lead them to the revealed. Progress was naturally slow,—there
was more to discourage than to cheer. Still the Franciscans labored
on; and though their number was limited to six, they had in 1625 five
missions at Tadousac, Quebec, Three Rivers, among the Nipissings, and
in the Huron country.
Finding that the mission field in New France required an order bound
to less scrupulous poverty than their own, the Recollects of Paris
invited the Jesuits to aid them. Enemond Masse, of the unfortunate
Acadian mission, with Charles Lalemant and John de Brebeuf, came over
in 1625. The old opposition to the order was renewed. The Jesuits were
homeless, till the Recollects opened the doors of their convent to
them. Commanding resources from influential friends, they soon began
to build, and brought over men to swell the settlement and cultivate
the ground. They joined the Recollects in the missions already founded,
profiting by their experience. This enabled the Church to extend its
missions. Father Joseph de la Roche d’Aillon, leaving the Hurons,
struck southwesterly, and founded a mission among the Neutral Nation,
apparently on the eastern bank of the Niagara, and urged his countrymen
to open direct communication by way of Lake Ontario with that fertile
part of the country.
The little colony at Quebec was, however, on the verge of starvation;
and after once baffling the English, Champlain surrendered in 1629,
and the missions of the Recollects and Jesuits came to a close. A
mere handful of converts was all the reward of their long and zealous
labors, and these they were compelled to leave exposed to the danger of
lapsing back into their original heathendom.
We cannot trace very distinctly the system adopted by the Recollects
and their Jesuit auxiliaries during this first period of mission labor
in Canada. Their usual course was to remain during the pleasant months
at the French posts,—Quebec, Three Rivers, and Tadousac,—attending to
the spiritual wants of the French and of the Indians who encamped near
by for trade, and then to follow an Indian band on its winter hunt. The
Recollects spoke despondingly. Some young men were taken to France and
instructed there,—one, Peter Anthony, having the Prince de Guimené as
his sponsor in baptism. But they found it almost impossible to keep
the young for any prolonged instruction, and they hesitated to baptize
adults, except in case of danger of death.
In the Huron country Father Nicholas Viel succeeded Le Caron, and
had his little chapel at Quieunonascaran, cultivating a small patch
of ground around his bark lodge. His success does not seem to have
exceeded that of his fellow religious in the more nomadic tribes. While
on his way to Quebec in 1625 he was treacherously hurled from his canoe
by a Huron guide, and perished in the rapid waters near Montreal that
still bear the name of _Sault au Récollet_.
Another Recollect, Father William Poullain, while on his way with some
Frenchmen from Quebec to Sault St. Louis, fell into the hands of the
Iroquois, who were about to torture him at the stake, when he was saved
by an offer of an exchange made by his countrymen.
The Jesuits adopted the system of the Recollects, but we have no
details of their labors,—one Huron boy taken to France, where he was
baptized by the name of Louis de Sainte Foy, being the result of the
joint labors to which most allusion is made.
The Court of France seems to have considered that both Recollect and
Jesuit had failed to acquire the languages of the country sufficiently
to do the work of God and of his most Christian Majesty. At all events,
each order hastened to put in print evidence of its proficiency
in American linguistics. The Recollect Sagard published a Huron
Dictionary; the Jesuit Brebeuf, a translation of Ledesma’s Catechism
into Huron, with the Lord’s Prayer and other devotions rendered into
Montagnais by Father Enemond Masse.[678]
When England reluctantly yielded up her Canadian conquest, the
all-powerful Cardinal Richelieu seems to have looked with no kindly
eye on either of the bodies who had already labored to evangelize New
France. He offered the mission to his favorite order, the Capuchins,
and only when they declined it did he permit the Jesuits to return.
[Illustration]
With the restoration of Canada to France by the treaty of Saint
Germain in 1632, the history of the great Jesuit missions begins. For
some years the Fathers of the Society of Jesus were, almost without
exception, the only clergy in the colony in charge of all the churches
of the settlers and the missions to the Indian tribes. When a pious
association, under the inspiration of the Venerable Mr. Olier, founded
Montreal, members of the Society of Priests which he had formed at
Saint Sulpice became the clergy of that town; and they gathered near it
a double-tongued Indian mission, which still continues to exist under
their care. They made no attempt to extend their labors, except in the
missionary voyage of Dollier de Casson and Galinée in the mission of
the Abbés Fénelon and Trouvé at Quinté Bay, and the later labors of the
Abbé Picquet at Ogdensburg.
When Bishop Laval was appointed for Canada in 1658, he founded a
seminary at Quebec, which was aggregated to the Seminary of the Foreign
Missions in Paris. The Jesuits then resigned all the parishes which
they had directed in the colony, and confined themselves to their
college and their Indian missions. The priests of the Seminary of
Quebec, beside their parish work, also undertook missions among the
Indians in Acadia, Illinois, and on the lower Mississippi.
A collision between the Governor of Canada and the Bishop with his
clergy and the Jesuits, in regard to the sale of liquor to the Indians,
led the Government to send back the Recollects to resume their early
labors. They did not, however, undertake any important missions among
the Indian tribes. Their efforts were confined almost exclusively
to the period and course of La Salle’s attempts at settlement and
exploration, and to a mission at Gaspé and a shorter one on the
Penobscot.
When the colony of Louisiana took form, the Indian missions there were
confided to the Jesuits, who directed them till the suppression of the
order terminated their existence in the dominions of France. Spain, in
her colonies, sent other orders to continue the work of the Jesuits,
and this was done successfully in some places; but there was no effort
made to sustain those of the Jesuits in Canada and Louisiana, and amid
the political changes which rapidly ensued the early French missions
gradually dwindled away.
These Jesuit missions embraced the labors of the Fathers among the
Micmacs, chiefly on Cape Breton Island and at Miscou; the missions
among the Montagnais, Bersiamites, Oumamiwek, Porcupine Indians,
Papinachois, and other tribes of the lower St. Lawrence and Saguenay,
the centre being at Tadousac; the missions of which Quebec was
the immediate centre, comprising the work among the Montagnais
of that district and Algonquins from the west. Of this Algonquin
mission, Sillery soon became the main mission; but as the Algonquins
disappeared, Abenakis came to settle there, and remained till the
chapel was removed to St. François de Sales. Then Three Rivers was
a mission station for the Indians near it, and for the Attikamegues
inland, till a separate mission was established for that tribe. Beyond
Montreal was the mission to the Nipissings, and the great Huron
mission, the scene of the most arduous and continued labors of the
Fathers among the palisaded towns of the Wyandots and Dinondadies.
After the ruin of these nations, the Jesuits led one part of the
survivors to Isle Orleans, and subsequently gathered a remnant of
them at Lorette, where their descendants still remain. The rest fled
towards the Mississippi, and were zealously followed by the energetic
missionaries, who gathered them at Mackinac, whence they removed in
time to Detroit, and ultimately to Sandusky, the last point where the
Jesuits ministered to them.
Beyond Lake Huron was the great Ottawa mission, embracing the attempts
to christianize the Ottawas on Lake Superior, the Chippewas at Sault
Ste. Marie, the Beaver Indians and Crees; at Green Bay was another
post for the Menomonees, Pottawatamies, Foxes, and Mascoutens; while
south of Lake Michigan came in time Jesuit labors among the Miamis and
Illinois. The missions attempted among the Sioux beyond the Mississippi
mark the western limit of the old Jesuit efforts to convert the native
tribes.
With the establishment of Louisiana came the missions of the Society
among the Yazoos, Arkansas, Choctaws, Alibamons, and other tribes.
THE MICMAC MISSION.—The Jesuit missions among the Micmacs never
attained any remarkable development, and most of the territory occupied
by this branch of the Algonquin family was attended by other bodies of
missionaries. Father Julian Perrault began his labors on Cape Breton
in 1634; Charles Turgis, with others, was at Miscou in the following
years. Most of the Jesuits, however, were compelled to withdraw with
shattered health; and Turgis, devoting himself to the care of the sick,
died at his post in 1637. Father John Dolebeau became paralyzed, and
while returning to France was blown up at sea. At last, however, Father
Andrew Richard and Martin de Lyonne succeeded in founding a mission;
they learned the language, and extended their labors to Chaleurs Bay,
Ile Percée, Miramichi, and Chédabuctou, finding one old woman who had
been baptized by Biard at Port Royal. Lyonne died, devotedly attending
the sick, in 1661; Richard continued his labors some years later, aided
for a time by James Fremin, and cheered by visits from his superior,
Jerome Lalemant. They made some converts, although they did not banish
the old superstitions and savagery of the tribe; but when Bishop Laval
visited Gaspé in 1659, the missionaries presented one hundred and forty
Indian Christians for confirmation.
[Illustration]
When Richard’s labors ceased, the Recollects took charge of the mission
at Isle Percée, where French and Indians were attended from about 1673
by Fathers Hilarion Guesnin and Exuperius Dethune. They were succeeded
in 1675 by Father Christian Le Clercq, who took up the Indian mission
with zeal, and has left ineffaceable traces of his twelve years’ labor.
He acquired the Micmac language; and finding that some Indians, to
aid their memory in retaining his instructions, employed a system of
hieroglyphics on bits of bark, he studied and improved it, till he
had the daily prayers, mass, and catechism in this form. The Indians
readily adopted these hieroglyphics, and taught them to their children
and later converts. They have been retained in use till the present,
and the Rev. Christian Kauder, a Redemptorist, had type cut in Austria,
and published a catechism, hymn and prayer book, in them at Vienna in
1866. In 1685 land was given to the priests of the Seminary of Quebec;
gentlemen of that body, with some Recollects and occasionally a Jesuit
Father, served the coast from Gaspé to Nova Scotia, and all the Micmacs
became Catholics. They seem to have been attended with the French,
and not as a distinct mission. The Micmac territory included not only
the coast, but Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland.
Of these missionaries, Messrs. Thury and Gaulin and the Recollect
Felix Pain seem to have been the most prominent. The Abbé Anthony S.
Maillard, who was missionary to the Micmacs in Cape Breton and Acadia
till his death in 1768, exercised great influence; and his mastery of
the language is shown in his Grammar of the Micmac, which was printed
at New York in 1864.
THE MONTAGNAIS MISSION.—Tadousac was from the commencement of French
settlement on the St. Lawrence an anchoring-place for vessels and
a trading-station which attracted Indians from the west and north.
Missionaries made visits to the spot from an early period, but the
Jesuit mission there is regarded as having been founded in 1640. It
received charitable aid from the Duchess d’Aiguillon, who maintained
for a time the Fathers employed there. Father John de Quen may be said
to have established the first permanent mission, from which gradually
extended efforts for christianizing the tribes on the shores down to
Labrador and on the upper waters of the Saguenay.
The first mission was the result of the effort of Charles Meiachkwat,
a Montagnais who had visited Sillery and induced the Jesuit Fathers to
send one of their number to Tadousac. Charles erected the first chapel;
and may be regarded as the first native Christian of that district, and
first native catechist, for he visited neighboring tribes to impart
what religious knowledge he had learned.
The missionaries encountered the usual difficulties,—great laxity
of morals, a deep-rooted belief in dreams, the influence of the
medicine-men, and vices introduced by the traders, especially
intoxication. Father Buteux, who replaced De Quen for a time, seems to
have been the first to give his neophytes the kind of calendar still in
use among the wandering Indians, with spaces for each day, to be marked
off as it came, and Sundays and holidays so designated by symbols that
they could recognize and observe them.
The missionaries at first went down from Quebec in the spring, and
continued their labors till autumn, when the Indians scattered for
the winter hunt; but as the neophytes felt the want of a regular
ministry during the winter, they attempted, in 1645, to supply it by
performing some of the priestly functions themselves. This led to
fuller instruction; and to impress them, the missionaries left marked
pieces of wood of different colors, called _massinahigan_, a word still
in use in all the Catholic missions among Algonquin nations for a book
of prayers.
In 1646 De Quen ascended the Saguenay, and penetrated, by way of the
Chicoutimi, to Lake St. John, in order to preach to the Porcupine
tribe, who had already erected a cross in their village. Three years
later, Father Gabriel Druillettes visited the same tribe and reared
his bark chapel among them. In 1651 De Quen made another missionary
excursion, reaching various villages on the lake, and subsequently,
returning to Tadousac, sailed down the St. Lawrence till he reached
bands of the Oumamiwek or Bersiamites, among whom he began mission work.
[Illustration]
The mission of the Holy Cross at Tadousac was, however, the scene of
the most assiduous labors, as often a thousand Indians of different
tribes would be encamped there; and though nothing could be done to
check the errant life of these Algonquins, ideas of Christian morality
and faith were inculcated, and much reformation was effected. In 1660
Father Jerome Lalemant, superior of the missions, continued the labors
of his predecessors on Lake St. John, and ascending the Mistassini,
reached Nekouba, then a gathering-place for the Algonquin tribes of
the interior. Here they hoped to reach several nations who had never
seen a missionary, and especially the Ecureuil, or Squirrel tribe; but
the Iroquois war-parties had penetrated farther than missionary zeal,
and the Jesuits found the Algonquins of these remote cantons fleeing
in all directions after sustaining a series of defeats from the fierce
men-hunters from the Mohawk and Oswego. The great aim was to reach the
Crees, but that nation was subsequently approached by way of the great
lakes, when the route in that direction was opened by Menard.
[Illustration]
Bailloquet and Nouvel wintered in successive years with bands of
Montagnais, travelling in snow-shoes, and drawing their chapel
requisites on a sled, as they followed the hunters, pitching their
tents on encountering other parties, to enable them to fulfil their
religious duties. Then, in the spring of 1664, while Druillettes
visited the tribes on the upper waters of the Saguenay, Nouvel ascended
the Manicouagan to the lake of that name in the country of the
Papinachois, a part yet untrodden by the foot of the white man. Some
of the tribe were already Christians, converted at the mission posts;
but to most the missionary was an object of wonder, and his rude chapel
a never-ceasing marvel to them and to a more northerly tribe, the
Ouchestigouetch, who soon came to camp beside the mission cross.
Nouvel cultivated this tribe for several years, wintering among them,
or pursuing them in their scattered cabins, till the spring of 1667,
when all the Christians of these Montagnais bands gathered at Tadousac
to meet Bishop Laval, who, visiting his diocese in his bark canoe, was
coming to confer on those deemed sufficiently grounded in the faith the
sacrament of confirmation. He reached Tadousac on the 24th of June, and
was welcomed by four hundred Christian Indians, who escorted him to the
temporary bark chapel, for the church had been totally destroyed by
fire. The bishop confirmed one hundred and forty-nine.
Beaulieu, Albanel, and Druillettes labored there in the following
years; but small-pox and other diseases, with want caused by the
Iroquois driving them from their hunting-grounds, had reduced the
Indians, so that, as Albanel states, in 1670 Tadousac was almost
deserted,—not more than one hundred Indians assembled there, whereas
he remembered the time when one could count a thousand or twelve
hundred encamped at the post at once; and of this petty band some were
Micmacs from Gaspé, and Algonquins from Sillery.
[Illustration]
In 1671, while Father de Crépieul remained in charge of the missions
near Tadousac, with which he was for years identified, Albanel, with
the Sieur Denys de St. Simon, ascended the Saguenay, and wintering near
Lake St. John pushed on by Lake and River Nemiskau, till they reached
the shores of Hudson’s Bay, where the Jesuit planted his cross and
began a mission. On his way to revisit it in 1674, he was crippled by
an accident, and Albanel found him helpless in mid-winter in the woods
near Lake St. John. Crépieul then visited the Papinachois in their
country, as Father Louis Nicolas did the Oumamis at the Seven Islands.
Boucher, a few years later, aided Crépieul, and from their chapels at
Chicoutimi and Metabetchouan as centres, missionary excursions were
made in all directions.
[Illustration]
Dalmas, a later auxiliary of Crépieul, after wintering at Chicoutimi,
was killed in the spring of 1694 on the shores of Hudson’s Bay.
De Crépieul clung to his arduous mission till 1702, when, broken by his
long and severe labors, he retired to Quebec, where he died soon after.
Peter Michael Laure, who occupied the same field from 1720 to 1737,
drew up a Montagnais grammar and dictionary, greatly aided, as his
manuscript tells us, by the pious Mary Outchiwanich.
Father John Baptist La Crosse was the last of the old Jesuit
missionaries at Tadousac and Chicoutimi, dying at the former post
in 1782, after the suppression of his order and the disasters of
his countrymen. He taught many of his flock to read and write, and
they handed down the knowledge from parent to child, clinging to the
religious books and Bible selections made for them by this missionary,
of whom they still recount wonderful works.
[Illustration]
THE MISSIONS AT QUEBEC, THREE RIVERS, AND SILLERY.—The Jesuit
missionaries on returning to Canada in 1632 resumed the instruction
of the wandering Montagnais near Quebec, Father Le Jeune taking the
lead; and when a post was established at Three Rivers, Father Buteux
began there the devoted labors which ended only with his life. The
missionaries during the time of trade when Indians gathered at the
French posts endeavored to gain their good-will, and instructed all
who evinced any good disposition; during the rest of the year they
made visits to wandering bands, often wintering with them, sharing the
dangers and privations of their hunting expeditions amid mountains,
rapids, and forests.
[Illustration: PAUL LE JEUNE.
From a photograph (lent by Mr. Parkman) of an old print.]
It was soon evident that their precarious mode of life, the rapid
diminution of game when they began to kill the animals for their furs
and not merely for food, small-pox and other diseases introduced by
the French, and the slaughters committed by the Iroquois, would soon
sweep away the Upper Montagnais, unless they could be made sedentary.
A few endeavored to settle near the French and maintain themselves by
agriculture, but in 1637 the missionaries began a kind of reduction
at a place above Quebec called at first St. Joseph, but soon known
as Sillery, from the name of the pious and benevolent Commander de
Sillery in France, who gave means for the good work. Two families,
comprising twenty souls in all, settled here, in houses built for
them, and began to cultivate the ground. Others soon joined them, and
plots were allotted to the several families. Of this settlement Noel
Negabamat may be regarded as the founder. Though Sillery was ravaged by
disease, which soon broke out in the cabins, the project seemed full
of promise; the Indians elected chiefs, and a form of government was
adopted. The nuns sent out in 1639 to found a hospital, for which the
Duchesse d’Aiguillon gave the necessary means, aided the missionaries
greatly. From the day they landed, these self-sacrificing nuns opened
wards for the reception of sick Indians, and they decided to establish
their hospital at Sillery. They carried out this resolution, and opened
it on the first of December, 1640, receiving both French and Indian
patients. Their services impressed the natives more deeply than did the
educational efforts of the Jesuit Fathers and of the Ursuline nuns, who
had schools for Indian children of various tribes at Quebec.
This mission was an object of especial care, and great hopes were
entertained of its effecting much in civilizing and converting the
Montagnais and Algonquins, both of which nations were represented in
the first settlers at St. Joseph’s. These Indians were induced to
cultivate the ground, but they still depended on their fishing, and
the winter hunt carried them off to the woods. This the missionaries
could not prevent, as the hunts supplied the furs for the trade of the
company which controlled Canada.
The hopes of the Jesuits were not to be realized. Some progress was
made, and converts like Noel Negabamat and Charles Meiachkwat exercised
great influence; but the Iroquois war-parties soon drove the new
agriculturists from their fields, the nuns removed their hospital
to Quebec in 1646, and the neophytes were scattered. “We behold
ourselves dying, exterminated every day,” wrote Negabamat in 1651.
Some years after, an accidental fire destroyed St. Michael’s church
with the mission house, and from that time the Indian settlement at
Sillery languished. Disease and excess aided the work of war, and the
Algonquins and Montagnais dwindled away.
[Illustration]
As early as 1643 some Abenakis from the banks of the Kennebec had
visited Sillery, and one chief was baptized. Father Druillettes soon
after visited their towns, and founded a mission in their country.
This was at first continued, but the Christians of the tribe and
those seeking instruction visited Sillery from time to time. This was
especially the case after 1657, when the Jesuits suspended their labors
in Maine, for fear of giving umbrage to the Capuchin Fathers who had
missions on the coast.
[Illustration]
Sillery revived as an Abenaki mission, but the soil at last proved
unfit for longer cultivation by Indians. By this time, Fathers James
and Vincent Bigot had been assigned to this tribe. They looked out
for a new mission site, and by the aid of the Marchioness de Bauche
bought a tract on the Chaudière River, and in 1683 established near
the beautiful falls the mission of St. Francis de Sales. Sillery was
abandoned, and there was nothing to mark the famous old mission site,
till a monument was erected a few years ago to the memory of Masse and
De Noue, who lie there.
[Illustration]
With the chapel of St. Francis as a base, a new series of missions
gradually spread into Maine. The Jesuits resumed their ministry on
the banks of the Kennebec; the Bigots, followed by Rale, Lauverjeat,
Loyard, and Sirenne, keeping up their work amid great danger, their
presence exciting the most fearful animosity in the minds of New
Englanders, who ascribed all Indian hostilities to them. Rale was
especially marked out. Though a man of cultivation and a scholar,—his
Abenaki dictionary being a monument of his mastery of the language,—a
price was set on his head, his chapel was pillaged by one expedition,
which carried off his manuscript dictionary[679] (now one of the
curiosities in Harvard College Library), and in a later expedition he
was slain at the foot of his mission cross, August 23, 1724. He knew
his danger, and his superior would have withdrawn him, but the Canadian
authorities insisted on his remaining.
Besides this Jesuit mission at Norridgewock, the priests of the
seminary at Quebec, anxious to do their part in the mission-work of
which their parent institution, the Seminary of the Foreign Missions at
Paris, did so much, founded a mission on the Penobscot. This was long
directed by the Rev. Peter Thury, who acquired great influence over the
Indians, accompanying them in peace and war till his death in 1699. A
Recollect, Father Simon, had a mission at Medoktek, on the St. John’s,
which was subsequently directed by the Jesuits, as well as that on the
Penobscot.
Meanwhile the mission on the Chaudière had been transferred to the
site still known as St. François, and on the death of Rale bands of
the Kennebec Indians emigrated to it, forming a strong Indian village,
which sent many a vindictive war-party on the frontiers of New England.
This drew on it fierce retaliation from Rogers and his partisan
corps, who captured the village, killed many, and fired church and
dwellings.[680]
THE MISSIONS AT THREE RIVERS AND MONTREAL.—Ascending the St. Lawrence,
the next mission centre was Three Rivers, where the Jesuit missionaries
Le Jeune and Buteux resumed, in 1633, the labors of the Recollect
Brother Du Plessis and Fathers Huet and Poullain. It was a place of
trade where Indians gathered, so that the missionaries found constant
objects of their care. Many were instructed, and returned to impart to
others their newly acquired knowledge of God’s way with man, and the
consolations of Christianity.
Gradually the Indians who had settled near Three Rivers were almost
entirely won; while the Attikamegues, or White Fish Indians, dwelling
far inland, came to ask a missionary to reside among them. They were
of the Montagnais tongue, and remarkable for their gentle character.
Father Buteux, charmed with their docility, instructed them; and
at last, in 1651, ascended the river, and after a toilsome journey
of fifty-three days, reached their country. All who had not become
Christians already were anxiously awaiting his arrival; a rude chapel
was raised, and the neophytes in their fervor crowded to it to listen
or to pray. The next year Buteux set out once more to make a missionary
visit to this interesting race; but the Iroquois were on their
track, and the missionary while making a portage received two fatal
wounds, and died amid his arduous duties. The tribe was soon nearly
annihilated, the survivors seeking refuge among the remote lodges of
the scattered Montagnais.
Among the converts at Three Rivers was Pieskaret, the most famous
warrior of the Montagnais or Adirondacks, whose bravery was the terror
of the Iroquois. But the Indians of that portion of the St. Lawrence
valley were doomed,—nearly all were swept away by the Iroquois; and
after the death of Buteux the Montagnais mission at Three Rivers seems
to have numbered few Indians, nearly all the survivors having fled to
their kindred tribes near Tadousac.
[Illustration]
When the settlement at Montreal was formed in 1641 by Maisonneuve
acting under the Society of Montreal, the Jesuits were the first
clergymen of the new town, and began to labor among the Indians who
gathered there from the St. Lawrence and Ottawa. This mission of the
Jesuits was not, however, a permanent one. The Sulpitians,—a community
of priests established in Paris by the Rev. John James Olier, one
of the members of the Montreal society,—became the proprietors of
the new settlement, and they continue still in charge of churches,
institutions, and missions on or near Montreal island, after a lapse of
more than two centuries. An Indian mission for Algonquins was begun on
the mountain at a spot now known as the Priests’ Farm, chiefly by the
liberality and zeal of the Rev. Mr. Belmont. Iroquois and Hurons also
came, and the mission was removed to Sault au Récollet, and then to the
Lake of the Two Mountains. Here it still exists, embracing an Iroquois
village and one of Algonquin language, made up in no small part of
Nipissings from the lake of that name. This is the oldest mission
organization in Canada, the Sulpitians having been unmolested by the
English Government, which put an end to the communities of the Jesuits
and Recollects.
Above Montreal no permanent missions were attempted among the Algonquin
bands dotted along the line of the Ottawa,—the Indians seeking
instruction on their visits to the French posts and missions, or
receiving missionaries from time to time, as their river was the great
highway to the West.
THE HURON MISSION.—The Huron nation in Upper Canada, a confederacy of
tribes allied in origin and language to the Iroquois, had been already
the field of a mission conducted by Recollects, aided after a time by
the Jesuits. When Canada was restored to France by the treaty of St.
Germain, Brebeuf penetrated to his old mission, in 1634, accompanied by
Fathers Daniel and Davost, and in September erected a log chapel in the
town of Ihonatiria. Thus began the greatest of the Jesuit missions in
Canada, which called forth the most intrepid courage of the heralds of
Christianity, and triumphed over the heathen hostility in the tribes,
only to perish at last by the hands of the terrible Iroquois.
The Hurons lived in palisaded towns, their bark cabins clustering
within, while the fields where they cultivated corn, beans, pumpkins,
and tobacco lay near. Their hunting and fishing excursions were
comparatively short, and they laid up stores of provisions for winter.
The opportunity for instructing the people was accordingly much greater
than among the nomadic tribes of the Algonquin family. Brebeuf,
already versed in the language, extended his studies and initiated his
associates into its intricate peculiarities. The young were the first
care, and catechetical instructions were daily given to all whom they
could gather. The Lord’s Prayer and other devotions were taught; but it
was not easy to secure continuous attendance. This led to the project
of a school at Quebec, to which some of the most promising boys were
sent. There, with less to tempt them, more progress was made; yet the
result was but temporary, for the pupils on returning to the upper
country threw aside their slight civilization.
[Illustration]
As other missionaries arrived, the labors of the Fathers in the Huron
country extended; but they found that the medicine-men were bitter
enemies, foreseeing a loss of all their influence. The march of
Europeans through America always spread new diseases. In the Huron
country the ravages were severe. The medicine-men ascribed all to
the missionaries. Cabins were closed against them; their lives were
in constant peril. Their house was set on fire, and a council of the
three tribes met to decide whether they should all be put to death.
The undaunted missionaries prepared to meet their fate, committing
their chapel service and the fruit of their Indian studies to Peter
Tsiwendeentaha, their first adult convert. Their fearless conduct at
last triumphed. Adults came to solicit instruction; Ossossare and
Teananstayae became mission stations, four Fathers laboring in each,
while Garnier and Jogues proceeded to the towns of the Tionontates,
a kindred tribe, who from their cultivation and sale of tobacco
were generally called by the French the Petun, or Tobacco tribe. As
new stations were formed and chapels built in the Huron towns, the
missionaries in 1639 erected on the River Wye the mission-house of St.
Mary’s, to serve as a centre from which priests could be sent to any of
the towns, and where they could always find refuge. They extended their
labors to the Neutral Nation and to the Algonquin tribes lying near the
Huron country, reaching as far as Sault Ste. Marie. The missionaries
endured great hardships and sufferings on these journeys from hunger,
cold, and accident,—Brebeuf having broken his collar-bone by a fall,
and reaching his lodge only by a long and weary progress on his hands
and knees. Their efforts seemed almost vain. In 1640 they could claim
only one hundred Christians out of sixteen thousand Hurons; a few
prominent chiefs had joined them, but the young braves would not submit
to the law of the gospel. Christian families, and still more Christians
in heathen families, were subjected to much persecution, till the
number of catechumens in a town enabled them to take a firm stand.
Meanwhile the Five Nations, freely supplied with firearms by the Dutch,
were annihilating the Huron tribes, already weakened by disease. The
war interrupted intercourse between the Huron country and Quebec.
Father Jogues, sent down in 1642 to obtain supplies for the mission,
while journeying back, fell with many Hurons into the hands of the
Mohawks, who killed most of the party, and led the rest with the
missionary to their towns. The missionary and his attendant, René
Goupil, were tortured and mutilated, reduced to the rude slavery of
Indian life, and witnessed the execution of most of their Hurons.
Full of missionary zeal, they endeavored to impart some ideas of
Christianity; but the effort cost Goupil his life, and Jogues was with
difficulty rescued by the Dutch, and sent to Europe.
[Illustration]
The missionaries in the Huron country, by the loss of the supplies in
the Huron flotilla, were reduced to great straits, till Brebeuf reached
them with two assistants, Garreau and Chabanel, whom no dangers could
deter. Father Bressani, returning to his western labors, was less
fortunate; he too was captured, and endured all but death at the hands
of the Mohawks. His sufferings led the charitable Dutch to effect his
release. Yet neither Jogues nor Bressani faltered; both returned to
Canada to continue their perilous work.
When a temporary peace gave the Huron mission a respite, there were
five churches in as many towns, and one for Algonquins living in the
Huron country. The voice of the missionary seemed to find more hearers,
and converts increased; but the end was at hand.
In July, 1648, the Iroquois attacked Teananstayae. As the braves
manned the palisades, Father Daniel was among them to give them the
consolations of religion, to confess and baptize; then he hurried to
the cabins to minister to the sick and aged. He found his chapel full,
and urging them to flight from the rear, he closed the front portal
behind him, and awaited the Iroquois braves, who had stormed the
palisade and were swooping down on the cross-crowned church. Riddled by
arrows and balls, he fell dead, and his body was flung into the burning
church of St. Joseph.
The capture of this town seemed a death-blow to hope in the bosoms of
the Hurons. They abandoned many of their towns, and fled to the islands
of Lake Huron or the towns of the Petuns. They could not be aroused to
any system of defence or precaution.
On the 16th of the ensuing March, a force of a thousand Iroquois
stormed, at daybreak, the Huron town which the missionaries called St.
Ignatius. So general and complete was the massacre, that only three
escaped to the next large town, St. Louis. Here were stationed the
veteran Brebeuf, companion of the early Recollect missioners in the
land, friend of Champlain, and with him as associate the young Gabriel
Lalemant. The Hurons urged the missionaries to fly; but, like Daniel,
they remained, exercising their ministry to the last, and attending to
every call of zeal. The Hurons repelled the first assault; but their
palisade was carried at last, and the victorious Iroquois fired the
cabins. The missionaries, while ministering to the wounded and dying,
were captured. They were taken, with other captives, to the ruined town
of St. Ignatius, and there a horrible torture began. They were bound
to the stake; Brebeuf’s hands were cut off; Lalemant’s body bristled
with awls and iron barbs; red-hot hatchets were pressed under their
arms and between their legs; and around the neck of Brebeuf a collar of
these weapons was placed. But the heroic old missionary denounced God’s
vengeance on the savages for their cruelty and hatred of Christianity,
till they cut off his nose and lips, and thrust a firebrand into his
mouth. They sliced off his flesh and devoured it, and, scalping him,
poured boiling water on his head, in mockery of baptism; then they
hacked off his feet, clove open his chest, and devoured his heart.
Lalemant was wrapped in bark to which fire was applied, and underwent
many of the same tortures as the older missionary; he too was baptized
in mockery, his eyes torn out and coals forced into the sockets. After
torturing him all the night, his tormenters clove his head asunder at
dawn.
[Illustration]
St Mary’s was menaced; but the Huron fugitives there sent out a
party which repulsed the Iroquois, who then retired, sated with
their vengeance. The Huron nation was destroyed. Fifteen towns were
abandoned. One tribe, the Scanonaenrat, submitted to the Iroquois, and
removed to the Seneca country in a body, with many Hurons of other
tribes. Some bands fled to the Petuns, Neuters, Eries, or Susquehannas.
A part, following the first fugitives to the islands in Lake Huron,
roamed to Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. These were in time brought
back by later missionaries to Mackinac.
The Huron mission was overthrown. A few of the Jesuit missionaries
followed the fugitives to St. Joseph’s Island; others joined Garnier
in the Petun mission. But that too was doomed. Echarita was attacked
in December, the Iroquois avoiding the Petun braves who had sallied
out to meet them. Garnier, a man of singularly attractive character,
earnest and devoted, though mortally wounded, dragged himself along on
the ground to minister to the wounded, and was tomahawked as he was
in the act of absolving one. Another missionary, Chabanel, was killed
by an apostate Huron. Their comrades accompanied the fugitive Petuns
as they scattered and sought refuge in the islands. The number of the
Hurons and Petuns was too great for the limited and hasty agriculture
to maintain. Great misery ensued. In June, 1650, the missionaries
abandoned the Huron country, and descended to Quebec with a number of
the Hurons. This remnant of a once powerful nation were placed on Isle
Orleans; but the Iroquois swept many of them off, and the survivors
found a home at Lorette, where their descendants still remain.
Thus ended the Huron mission in Upper Canada, which was begun by
the Recollect Le Caron in 1615, and which had employed twenty-nine
missionaries, seven of whom had yielded up their lives as the best
earnest of their sincerity and devotion to the cause of Christian
progress.
The Jesuit missions were by this time reduced to a most shadowy state.
The Iroquois had almost entirely swept away the Montagnais tribes on
the St. Lawrence above the Saguenay; they had cut to pieces most of the
bands of Algonquins on the Ottawa, while the country of the Hurons,
Petuns, and Neuters was a desert. The trading-posts of the French at
Montreal, Three Rivers, and Quebec were almost forsaken; no longer
did flotillas come laden with peltries to gladden the merchants, and
give missionaries an opportunity to address distant tribes. Several
missionaries returned to Europe, as there seemed no field to be reached
in America.
Suddenly, however, such a field presented itself. The Iroquois, who had
carried off a missionary—Father Poncet—from near Quebec, proposed
peace. They were in a fierce war with the Eries and Susquehannas, and
probably found that in their bloodthirsty march they were making the
land a desert, cutting off all supplies of furs from Dutch and French
alike. At all events, they restored Poncet, and, proposing peace,
solicited missionaries.
THE IROQUOIS MISSION.—War with the Iroquois had been almost
uninterrupted since the settlement of Canada. Champlain found
the Canadian tribes of every origin arrayed against the fierce
confederation which in their symbolic language “formed a cabin.” The
founder of Canada had gone to the very heart of the Iroquois country,
and at the head of his swarthy allies had given them battle on the
shores of Lake Champlain and on the borders of Lake Oneida. But the
war had brought the French colony to the brink of ruin, and swept its
allies from the face of the earth.
[Illustration]
Now peace was to open to missionary influence the castles of this
all-conquering people, and a foothold was to be gained there; and not
only this, but, relieved from war, Canada was to open intercourse with
the great West, and new missions were to be attempted in the basin of
the upper lakes and in the valley of the Mississippi. The missionaries
of Canada were thus to extend their labors within the present limits of
our republic on the north, as the Franciscans of Spain were doing along
the southern part from Florida to New Mexico.
The Recollect Joseph de la Roche d’Allion had already in early days
crossed the Niagara from the west; Jogues and Raymbault had planted
the cross at Sault Ste. Marie; Father Jogues had attempted to found a
mission on the banks of the Mohawk; but his body, with the bodies of
Goupil and Lalande, had mouldered to dust in our soil.
Father Simon le Moyne, who had succeeded to the Indian name of Jogues,
and who inherited his spirit, was the interpreter in the recent
negotiations, and had been invited to Onondaga and the Mohawk. For the
former, the seat of the council-fire of the Iroquois league, he set
out from Quebec July 2, 1654, and reached Onondaga by a route then new
to the French, passing through the St. Lawrence, Lake Ontario, and
the Oswego. He was favorably received at Onondaga, and the sachems,
formally by a wampum belt, invited the French to build a house on Lake
Ontario.
There was already a Christian element in the Iroquois cantons. Each
of the cantons contained hundreds of Hurons, all instructed in the
fundamental doctrines of Christianity, and not a few openly professing
it; while in the Seneca country was a town made up of the Scanonaenrat
Hurons, Petuns, and Neuters. Le Moyne found wherever he went Christians
eager to enjoy his ministry.
[Illustration]
His embassy filled all with hope; and the next year, as the Onondagas,
through a Christian chief, solicited the establishment of a mission
by the Jesuit Fathers, Peter Joseph Chaumonot and Claude Dablon were
selected. They reached Onondaga, and after a formal reception by the
sachems with harangues and exchange of wampum belts, the missionaries
were escorted to the spot given to them for their house and chapel.
Two springs, one salt and one of clear, sparkling fresh water, still
known as the Jesuits’ well, mark the knoll where St. Mary’s of Ganentaa
was speedily erected. The Canadian missionaries, from their resources
and alms contributed in France, spent large amounts to make this new
central mission adapted for all the fond hopes planned for its future
work in diffusing the gospel.
[Illustration]
The missionaries found the greatest encouragement in the interest
manifested, and in the numbers who came to solicit instruction. They
labored assiduously to gather the unexpected harvest; but mistrust
soon came, with reports of hostile action by the French. Dablon
returned to Canada, and a party of French under Captain Dupuis set
out to begin a settlement at Onondaga, while Fathers Le Mercier and
Menard went to extend the missions. They were welcomed with all the
formalities of Indian courtesy; and while Dupuis and his men prepared
to form the settlement, the missionaries erected a second chapel at
the Onondaga castle, which was attended from Ganentaa. Then René
Menard began a mission among the Cayugas, and Chaumonot, passing still
farther, visited the Seneca town of Gandagare, and that occupied by
the Scanonaenrat, many of whom were already Christians, and more ready
to embrace the faith. The Senecas themselves showed a disposition to
listen to Christian doctrines. Finding the field thus full of promise,
Chaumonot and Menard returned to Onondaga, whence they were despatched
to Oneida. Here they found less promise, but there were captive Hurons
to profit by their ministry.
[Illustration: LAKE ONTARIO AND THE IROQUOIS COUNTRY.
[From the _Jesuit Relation_ of 1662-1663, showing the relative
positions of the Five Nations, and Fort d’Orange (Albany).
Cf. this with map _Pays des Cinq Nations Iroquoises_, preserved in the
Archives of the Marine at Paris, and engraved in Faillon, _Histoire de
la Colonie Française_, iii. 196; and with one cited by Harrisse (no.
239), _Le Lac Ontario avec les Lieux circonuoisins, et particulierement
les Cinq Nations Iroquoises, l’Année_ 1688, which he would assign to
Franquelin.—ED.]]
Meanwhile Father Le Moyne had visited the Mohawk canton from Canada,
and prepared the way for a mission in that tribe.
Thus at the close of 1656 missionaries had visited each of the Five
Nations, and all seemed ready for the establishment of new and thriving
missions. The next year signs of danger appeared. A party of Hurons
compelled to remove to Onondaga were nearly all massacred on the way,
the missionaries Ragueneau and Duperon in vain endeavoring to stay the
work of slaughter, which was coolly ascribed to them. The Mohawks,
though they received Le Moyne, were openly hostile. They attacked
a flotilla of Ottawas at Montreal, and slew the missionary Leonard
Garreau, who was on his way to the far West, to establish missions on
the upper lakes.
[Illustration]
The missionaries in the cantons and the little French colony at
Onondaga were soon evidently doomed to a like fate. So evident was the
hostility of the Five Nations, that Governor d’Ailleboust arrested
all the Iroquois in Canada to hold them as hostages. The missionaries
at Ganentaa saw their danger, and through the winter formed plans for
escape. At last, in March, they prepared for a secret flight, and to
cover their design gave a banquet to the Onondagas, adopting the kind
in which, according to Indian custom, all the food must be eaten.
Dances and games were kept up till a late hour; and when the weary
guests at last departed, the French, who had amid the din borne to
the water’s edge boats and canoes secretly prepared in their house,
embarked, and, plying oar and paddle all night long, reached Lake
Ontario unseen and undiscovered even by a wandering hunter. It was
not till the following evening that the Onondagas, finding the house
at Ganentaa still and quiet, discovered that the French had vanished.
But the mode of escape was long a mystery to them, so cautiously and
adroitly had all the preparations for flight been made.
Le Moyne, in similar peril on the Mohawk, wrote a farewell letter,
which he committed to the Dutch authorities; but the sachems of the
tribe suddenly sent him to Montreal in the care of a party, so that
in March, 1657, the Jesuit missionaries had all withdrawn from the
territory of the Five Nations, after their short but laborious effort
to open the eyes of the people to the truths of religion.
The Iroquois then dropped the mask, and war parties swept through
the French colony, filling it with fire and blood. Yet the influence
of the missionaries had not been in vain. One able man, Garakonthié,
had listened and studied, though his unmoved countenance gave no
token of interest or assent. He became the protector of the Indian
Christians and of French prisoners, as well as an open advocate of
peace. Saonchiogwa, the Cayuga sachem, embraced his views, and in the
summer of 1660 appeared at Montreal as an envoy of peace, restoring
some prisoners and demanding a missionary for Onondaga. The Governor
of Canada hesitated to ask any of the Jesuit Fathers to undertake so
perilous a duty; but as the lives of the French at Onondaga depended on
it, Father Le Moyne intrepidly undertook the mission. He was waylaid
by Oneidas, but escaped, and reached Oswego. Garakonthié came out to
meet him. Once more peace was ratified. Nine prisoners accompanied
Garakonthié to Montreal, Le Moyne remaining; but so frail was the
newly established peace, that war parties from Mohawk and Onondaga
slew, near Montreal, two zealous Sulpitians, the Rev. Messrs. Vignal
and Le Maître. Though aware that any moment might be his last, Le
Moyne labored on at Onondaga and Cayuga among Huron captives and
native Iroquois, many, especially women, having become Christians, and
instructing others whom they brought to the missionary. His labors
ended in the spring of 1661, when he returned to Canada with the rest
of the French captives.
Again war was resumed, and though there were negotiations for peace,
and even applications for missionaries, the French Government, weary of
being the sport of Indian treachery, resolved to humble the Iroquois.
Regular troops and a body of colonists were sent from Europe, and
preparations made for a vigorous war. Forts were erected on the
Sorel River and Lake Champlain to cover Canada and aid in operations
against the Mohawks and Oneidas. The western cantons, influenced by
Garakonthié, proposed peace, and their proposals were accepted. Then,
in 1665, De Courcelles led a force, on snow-shoes, to the very castles
of the Mohawks, and though the tribe was warned in time to escape,
their flight had its effect on the other cantons. The Oneidas asked for
peace, and the Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas renewed their request.
De Tracy, the Viceroy of Canada, led in person a force of twelve
hundred French and one hundred Indians to the Mohawk country, and laid
it waste, burning all their towns and destroying all their stores of
provisions.
This exhibition of strength compelled the Mohawks to sue for peace.
All the cantons united in the treaty, and all solicited missionaries.
Once more were the Jesuits to undertake to propagate Christianity in
the towns of the Iroquois league, which had been so uniformly hostile
to the French and their allies. In July, 1667, Fathers Fremin, Bruyas,
and Pierron set out for the field of their mission work, trusting
their lives to a Mohawk party. They reached Gandawagué, and there and
elsewhere found Christians. A chapel in honor of St. Mary was raised,
and Fremin, sending Bruyas to Oneida, began his labors seriously.
Pierron, after visiting Albany, returned to Quebec, and in May, 1668,
Onondaga was assigned to Father Julian Garnier. Then De Carheil began
St. Joseph’s mission at Cayuga; and Fremin, leaving Pierron on the
Mohawk, set out for the Seneca country to establish a mission there.
Missionaries were thus at their labors in all the cantons, reviving
the faith of the captive Hurons, and winning the better disposed to
the faith. At Onondaga, Garakonthié during his life was the great stay
of the missions. He did not at once embrace Christianity; but after
mature deliberation was baptized with great solemnity in the cathedral
of Quebec in 1669, and persevered to his death, respected by English,
Dutch, and French, and by the Indians of the Five Nations, as a man
of remarkable ability and virtue. The Mohawk canton gave to the faith
Catharine Ganneaktena, an Erie captive, who founded subsequently a
mission village on the St. Lawrence; Catharine Tehgahkwita, a Mohawk
girl whom Canada reveres to this day as a saint; the Chief Assendasé;
and subsequently Kryn, known as the Great Mohawk: Oneida gave the
Chief Soenrese. Everywhere the missionaries found hearers, and among
them many with courage enough to throw off the old ideas and accept
Christianity with the strict obligations it imposed. The liquor which
was sold without check at Albany made drunkenness prevalent throughout
the castles of the Five Nations, brutalizing the braves; and these
degraded men became tools of the medicine-men, who, clinging to the old
belief, rallied around them the old Pagan party. But it is a remarkable
fact that the Jesuit missionaries, while they did not succeed in
making the Five Nations Christian, overthrew the worship of Agreskoué,
or Tharonhiawagon, their old divinity, so completely that his name
disappeared; and even those Iroquois who to this day refuse to accept
Christianity, nevertheless worship Niio or Hawenniio, God or the Lord,
who is no other than the God preached by the Jesuits in their almost
hopeless struggle in the seventeenth century.
The Christians in the cantons were subjected to so many annoyances
and petty persecutions, that gradually some sought homes with the
Hurons at Lorette; but when, in 1669, the Jesuits offered La Prairie
de la Magdelaine, a tract owned by them opposite Montreal, the
Iroquois Christians began there the mission of St. Francis Xavier.
The opportunity of being free from all molestation, of enjoying their
religion in peace, led many to emigrate from the castles in New York,
and a considerable village grew up, which the French fostered as a
protection to Canada. This mission in time was moved up to Sault St.
Louis, and became the present village of Caughnawaga, of which St.
Regis is an offshoot. About the same time Iroquois Christians gathered
at the Sulpitian Mission of the Mountain formed a village there
beside that of the Algonquins, and this, removed to the Lake of the
Two Mountains, still subsists, the same church serving for the flock
divided in language.
These missions, continually recruited by accessions of converts from
New York, afforded the missionaries the best opportunity for improving
the Indians, and the spirit of religious fervor prevailed. The daily
devotions, the zeal and piety of these new Christians, won encomiums
from the bishop and clergy and from the civil authorities.
The sachems of the league saw with no favorable eye this emigration
which was building up Iroquois settlements in Canada; for at Quinté
Bay, Lake Ontario, was a third, chiefly of Cayugas, among whom the
Sulpitians became missionaries. Finding their own efforts to recall the
emigrants fruitless, the sachems complained to the English authorities.
Dongan, the able governor of New York, whose great object was to
exclude the French from the territory south of the great lakes, took up
the matter in earnest. He brought over English Jesuits to replace those
of France in the missions in the cantons from the Mohawk to Seneca
Lake, and offered the Christian Iroquois in Canada a tract at Saratoga,
promising them a missionary and special protection. The fall of James
II. prevented the successful issue of this plan; but the opposition
made manifest in the English policy roused the old feeling in the
Iroquois, and when De la Barre, and subsequently Denonville, marched
to attack the Iroquois, the missionaries, no longer safe, abandoned
their missions. John de Lamberville, at Onondaga, was the last of the
missionaries, and he remained in his chapel till news arrived that
Denonville had seized many of the Iroquois in order to send them to the
galleys in France, and was advancing at the head of an army. His life
was forfeited, but the magnanimous sachems would not punish him for the
crime of another. They sent him safely back under an escort.
[Illustration]
Thus the Jesuit missions in New York ended virtually in 1687. Father
Milet, captured at Fort Frontenac, was a prisoner at Oneida from 1689
to 1694; and in spite of a severe law passed by New York in 1700,
Bruyas, the very next year, endeavored to revive the Iroquois missions;
but they never recovered any of their old importance, and were finally
abandoned in 1708, when the last Jesuit missionary retired to Albany.
Thenceforth the Jesuits devoted themselves to their mission at Sault
St. Louis; though at a later period the Sulpitian Picquet gathered a
new mission at the Presentation, now Ogdensburg, in 1748.
[Illustration]
During the period of the main missions in the tribes from 1668 to
1687, the baptisms—chiefly of infants, and adults in danger of
death—were about two hundred and fifty a year in the Five Nations; no
permanent church or mission-house was erected, and the result of their
teachings was the only monument. This was not slight: many were sincere
Christians, frequenting Montreal and Philadelphia for the practice of
their religion, while the Moravian and other later missionaries found
these converts, from a knowledge of Christian thought and prayers,
valuable auxiliaries in enabling them to reach the heathen Iroquois.
Pennsylvania, which had English Jesuit missionaries in her borders,
wisely employed their influence to attract Catholic Iroquois to the
chapel in Philadelphia, in order to win through them the good-will of
the cantons.
Towards the close of the Jesuit missions in New York, the Recollects
appeared within the Iroquois limits at Quinté Bay and Niagara, during
La Salle’s sway; but they made no serious effort to found a mission,
though Father Hennepin obtained Bruyas’ works on the Mohawk language,
in order to fit himself for the task. After the extinction of the
Jesuits, secular priests continued the missions at Sault St. Louis and
St. Regis, which still exist.
THE OTTAWA MISSIONS.—In the geographical distribution of the country,
the district around Lake Superior acquired at an early period the
name of the country of the Ottawas, from the first tribe which opened
intercourse with the French. The Jesuits, after establishing their
missions among the Hurons, soon extended their care to the neighboring
Algonquin tribes, and in 1641 Father Jogues and Father Raymbault
visited the Chippewas of Sault Ste. Marie. But the overthrow of the
Wyandots and the desertion of their country interrupted for years all
intercourse between the French on the St. Lawrence and the tribes
on the upper lakes. Yet in 1656 an Ottawa flotilla reached the St.
Lawrence, and the missionaries Garreau and Druillettes set out with
them for the West; but near Montreal Island they were ambushed by the
Iroquois, and Garreau was left weltering in his blood. Undeterred by
his fate or by the hardships and perils of the long journey, the aged
Menard, a veteran of the Huron and Cayuga missions, set out, encouraged
by Bishop Laval, with another Ottawa flotilla, in July, 1660, expecting
no fate but one that would appall most men. “Should we at last die
of misery,” he wrote, “how great our happiness will be!” Paddling
all day, compelled to bear heavy burdens, deprived of food, and even
abandoned by his brutal Ottawa guides, Menard at last reached a bay
on the southern shore of Lake Superior on the festival of St. Teresa,
and named it in her honor. It was apparently Keweenaw Bay. “Here,” he
wrote, “I had the consolation of saying mass, which repaid me with
usury for all my past hardships. Here I began a mission, composed of
a flying church of Christian Indians from the neighborhood of the
settlements, and of such as God’s mercy has gathered in here.” A chief
at first received him into his wigwam, but soon drove him out; and the
aged priest made a rude shelter of fir branches piled up, and in this
passed the winter laboring to instruct and console some as wretched
as himself. In the spring his zeal led him to respond to a call from
some fugitive Hurons who were far inland. He set out, but was lost at a
portage, and in all probability was murdered by a Kickapoo, in August,
1661.
Claude Allouez was the next Jesuit assigned to this dangerous post. In
the summer of 1665 he set out, and reaching Chegoimegon Bay on Lake
Superior on the first of October, began the mission of La Pointe du St.
Esprit, content to labor there alone with no mission station and no
countrymen except a few fur-traders between his chapel and Montreal.
For thirty years he went from tribe to tribe endeavoring to plant the
faith of which he was the envoy. He founded the mission at Sault Ste.
Marie, those in Green Bay, the Miami, and, with Marquette, the Illinois
mission. He was the first of the missionaries to meet the Sioux and to
announce the existence of the great river Mesipi. His first labors were
among the Chippewas at Sault Ste. Marie, the Ottawas at La Pointe, and
the Nipissings at Lake Alimpegon. When reinforced by Fathers Nicolas,
Marquette, and Dablon, the last two took post at Sault Ste. Marie; and
Allouez, leaving the Ottawa mission to Father Marquette, who soon had
the Hurons also gather around him at La Pointe, proceeded to Green Bay,
where he founded, in December, 1669, the mission of St. Francis Xavier
and a motley village of Sacs and Foxes, Pottawatamies, and Winnebagoes.
His visits soon extended to other towns on the bay and on Fox River.
At these missions the Jesuits, after their daily mass, remained for a
time to instruct all who came; then they visited the cabins to comfort
the sick, and to baptize infants in danger of death. Study of the
dialects of the various tribes cost hours of patient toil; and reaching
the western limit of the Algonquin tribes, they were already in contact
with the Winnebagoes and Sioux of a radically different stock,—the
Dakota.
Marquette was preparing the way to the lodges of the Sioux, when
the folly of the Hurons and Ottawas provoked that tribe to war. The
Hurons fled to Mackinac, the Ottawas to Manitouline, and Marquette was
compelled to defer his projected Sioux and Illinois missions.
The field seemed full of promise, and other missionaries were sent
out. They labored amid great hardships, and suffered much from the
brutality of the Indians. With tribes that were constantly shifting
their camping-grounds, it was difficult to maintain any regular system
of instruction for adults, or to bring the young to frequent the
chapel with any assiduity. Lay brothers, skilled as smiths and workers
in metal, were powerful auxiliaries in winning the good-will of the
Indians, as they repaired guns and other weapons and utensils. They
were the first manufacturers of the West, visiting the copper deposits
of Lake Superior, to obtain material for crucifixes, medals, and
other similar objects, which the missionaries distributed among their
converts. Yet even these lay brothers and their helpers, the volunteer
_donnés_, were not free from danger, and tradition claims that one of
them was killed by the brutal men whom they had so long served so well.
Of these missions, that at Mackinac, with its Hurons and Ottawas,
became the largest and most fervent. The former were more easily
recalled to their long-forgotten Christian duties, and the Ottawas
benefited by their example. Between 1670 and 1680 this mission, then
at Point St. Ignace, numbered five hundred Hurons and thirteen hundred
Ottawas.
The missions at Green Bay could show much less progress among the Sacs
and Foxes, Mascoutens, Pottawatamies, and Menomonees.
Father Marquette, setting out in June, 1673, from Mackinac with Louis
Jolliet, ascended the Fox, and reaching the Wisconsin by a portage,
entered the Mississippi, which they descended to the villages of the
Quappas or Arkansas. Returning by way of the Illinois River, the Jesuit
gave the Kaskaskias the first instructions, and was so encouraged that
he returned to found a mission, but died before he could reach his
chapel at Mackinac. This Illinois mission was continued by Allouez, who
visited it regularly for several years from his headquarters among the
Miamis.
There had arisen by this time a strong government opposition to the
Jesuits, based partly on a hostility to the order which had always
prevailed in France, but heightened in Canada by the fact that in the
struggle between the civil authorities and the bishop with his clergy
in regard to the selling of liquor to the Indians, the Jesuits were
regarded as the most stanch and active adherents of the bishop. This
feeling led to the recall of the Recollects. They found, however,
few avenues for their labors. Several were assigned to Cavelier de la
Salle, to accompany him on his explorations. One was stationed at Fort
Frontenac, and Father Hennepin made some attempt to acquire a knowledge
of Iroquois; but no mission work is recorded there or at Niagara, where
Father Watteau was left.
Father Gabriel de la Ribourde, with Hennepin and Zenobius Membré,
proceeded westward, and when La Salle established his post on the
Illinois, which he called Fort Crèvecœur, the three Franciscans
attempted a mission. Then Father Zenobius took up his residence in an
Illinois wigwam. He found great difficulty, and was not destined to
continue the experiment long. Hennepin, sent off by La Salle, descended
to the Mississippi, and fell into the hands of the Sioux, who carried
him up to the falls which still bear the name he conferred, “St.
Anthony’s.” He was rescued after a time by Du Lhut, but can scarcely
be said to have founded a mission. The Iroquois drove the French from
Fort Crèvecœur by their attack on the Illinois, Father Gabriel was
killed on the march by wandering Indians, and the attempted Recollect
mission closed. After La Salle’s descent of the Mississippi and
departure from the west, Allouez resumed his labors in Illinois, and
was followed by Gravier, who placed the mission on a solid basis, and
reduced the language to grammatical rules. Binneteau, the Marests,
Mermet, and Pinet came to join in the good work. The Illinois seemed to
show greater docility than did the tribes on Lake Superior and Green
Bay. The missionaries were stationed among the Kaskaskias, Cahokias,
Peorias, and Tamaroas. French settlements grew up in the fertile
district, and marriages with converted Indian women were not uncommon.
These missions flourished for several years, and a monument of the zeal
of the Jesuits exists in a very extensive and elaborate dictionary of
the language, with catechism and prayers, apparently the work of Father
le Boulanger.
When Iberville reached the mouth of the Mississippi he was accompanied
by Jesuit Fathers; but at that time no regular mission was attempted at
the mouth of the river.
The Seminary of Quebec resolved to enter the wide field opened by the
discovery of the Mississippi. Under the authority of the Bishop of
Quebec, the Rev. Francis de Montigny, the Rev. Messrs. St. Côme and
Davion were sent to Louisiana in 1698. They took charge of the Tamaroa
mission on the Illinois, and attempted missions among the Natchez,
Taensas, and Tonicas; but the Rev. Mr. St. Côme, who was stationed at
Natchez, and the Rev. Mr. Foncault were killed by roving Indians. Then
the priests of the Quebec Seminary withdrew from the lower Mississippi,
but continued to labor at Tamaroa, chiefly for the French, till the
closing years of French rule.
The Indian missions of Louisiana were then assigned to the Jesuits,
who were allowed to have a residence in New Orleans, but were excluded
from all ministry among the colonists. Their principal missions, among
the Arkansas, Yazoos, Choctaws, and Alibamons were continued till the
suppression of the order. At the time of the Natchez outbreak, the
Jesuit Father du Poisson, who had stopped at the post to give the
settlers the benefit of his ministry in the absence of their priest,
was involved in the massacre; Father Souel was butchered by the Yazoos
whom he was endeavoring to convert, and Father Doutreleau escaped in
a most marvellous manner. In the subsequent operations of the French
against the Chickasaws, Father Sénat, accompanying a force of French
and Illinois as chaplain, was taken and put to death at the stake,
heroically refusing to abandon the wounded and dying.
These Louisiana missions extended to the country of the Sioux, where
several attempts were made by Father Guignas, who was long a prisoner,
and by other Jesuit Fathers. Aubert died by the hands of the Indians
while trying to reach and cross the Rocky Mountains with La Verenderye.
The increasing hostility to the Jesuits naturally weakened their
missions, which received a death-blow from the suppression of the order
in France,—a step carried out so vindictively in Louisiana, that all
the churches at their Indian missions were ordered to be razed to the
ground.
As Canada fell to England and Louisiana to Spain, the work of the
Jesuit missionaries in French North America ended. Their record is
a chapter of American history full of personal devotedness, energy,
courage, and perseverance; none can withhold the homage of respect
to men like Jogues, Brebeuf, Garnier, Buteux, Gravier, Allouez, and
Marquette. Men of intelligence and education, they gave up all that
civilized life can offer to share the precarious life of wandering
savages, and were the first to reveal the character of the interior of
the country, its soil and products, the life and ideas of the natives,
and the system of American languages. They made known the existence
of salt springs in New York, and of copper on Lake Superior; they
identified the ginseng, and enabled France to open a lucrative trade in
it with China; they planted the first wheat in Illinois and the first
sugar in Louisiana. Their missions did not equal in results those of
the Franciscans in Florida, Texas, New Mexico, and California,—not
from any lack of personal ability or devotion to their work, but
because they were at the mercy of trading companies, which allowed them
a stipend just sufficing for their moderate wants; but neither company
nor government made any outlay for such mission-work as would have
enabled the missionaries to carry out any general plan for civilizing
the natives. The Spanish Government, on the contrary, dealt directly
with the missionaries, and did all to insure the success of their
teaching. When a mission was to be established in Texas, New Mexico,
or California, with the missionaries went a party of soldiers to erect
a _presidio_ or garrison-house as the nucleus of a settlement. These
soldiers took their families with them; civilized Indians from Mexico
who had acquired some European arts and trades were also sent, as being
able to understand the character of the Indians better. With the party
went horses, cattle, sheep, swine, agricultural implements, grain and
seeds for planting, looms, etc. Then a mission was established, and as
converts were made in the neighboring tribes, they were brought into
the mission, and there taught to read and write in Spanish, instructed
religiously, and trained to agriculture and trades. The mission was
under discipline like a large factory, and each family shared in the
profit.
The defect of the system was that no provision was made for the
gradual settling apart from the mission of those who showed ability
and judgment, allowing them to manage for themselves, and replacing
them by others. They were kept too long in the degree of vassals, with
no incentive to acquire manhood and independence. Accordingly, when
the missions were suppressed, the Indians, who had never acted for
themselves, were left in a state of helplessness.
Such a system in Canada would have saved the Indians of the St.
Lawrence Valley and Upper Canada. What was accomplished, was effected
by the indomitable energy of individuals,—the Jesuits, laboring most
earnestly and continuously, effecting most; the Sulpitians ranking
next; then the Priests of the Foreign Missions, and the Recollects.
In our time the work of winning the Indians to the Catholic faith, or
retaining them among its adherents, has devolved almost entirely on
the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in Canada and Oregon, the Jesuits and
Benedictines in the United States.
CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.
THE works bearing directly or mainly on the history of the Catholic
missions in Canada and the other parts of the northern continent once
claimed by France embrace so large a collection, that, instead of the
missions being an incident in the civil history, the civil history of
French America for much of its first century has to be gleaned from the
annals of its missionary work.
For the first Recollect mission,—1615-1629,—the main authority is
Sagard, _Le Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons, situé en l’Amérique vers
la Mer douce, és derniers confins de la Nouvelle France, dite Canada_,
Paris, Denys Moreau, 1632; enlarged a few years later, and published
as _Histoire du Canada et Voyages que les Frères Mineurs Recollects y
ont faicts pour la conversion des infidelles_, Paris, Claude Sonnius,
1636. To each of these works is appended a _Dictionnaire de la Langve
Hvronne_, Paris, 1632. Sagard’s work is very diffuse, rich in details
on Indian life and customs, but gives little as to the civil history of
Canada.[681]
Le Clercq, _Établissement de la Foi_, 2 vols. 12mo, 1691, translated
as _Establishment of the Faith_, 2 vols. 8vo, New York, 1881,[682]
gives in the first volume a clearer and more definite account of the
ecclesiastical history of Canada for the period embraced in the first
Recollect mission.
The _Voyages de Champlain_, Paris, 1619, gives some account of
the introduction of the Recollects into Canada.[683] In Margry,
_Découvertes et Établissements des Français_, Paris, 1875, there are
two memoirs by the Recollects, drawn up to obtain permission to return
to Canada,—one made in 1637 (vol. i. p. 3), the other in 1684 (p.
18),—both bearing on their earlier labors.
Le Clercq refers in two places[684] to “an ample Relation given to the
public” by the Recollects of Aquitaine for an account of their labors
in Acadia; but the work is still unknown to bibliographers and students.
For the later Recollect missions, the sources to be consulted are
Father Christian Le Clercq, _Nouvelle Relation de la Gaspésie_, Paris,
1691, and the second volume of his _Établissement de la Foi_. Hennepin,
in his _Description de la Louisiane_, Paris, 1683, 1688, translated
as _Description of Louisiana_, New York, 1881, gives an account of
his own missionary career; but his _Nouvelle Découverte_ expands his
former work, and introduces matter of doubtful authenticity, while his
_Nouveau Voyage_ is based on the second volume of Le Clercq.[685]
As bearing on the Recollect missions, cf. the _Voyage au Nouveau Monde_
of Father Crespel, Amsterdam, 1757; in English in _Perils of the Ocean
and Wilderness_, Boston.[686]
* * * * *
On the Jesuit missions, the works to be consulted are, for the first
attempt in Acadia, Biard, _Relation de la Nouvelle France, de ses
Terres, Naturel des Terres, et de ses Habitans_, Lyons, 1616, reprinted
in the _Relations des Jésuites_, Quebec, 1858, and in fac-simile by
Dr. O’Callaghan; the accounts in the _Annuæ Litteræ Societatis Jesu_
for 1612, Lyons, 1618, and for 1611, Douay, 1618; Biard’s letter in
Carayon’s _Première Mission des Jésuites au Canada_, pp. 1-105; and an
adverse view in Lescarbot, _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_, 3d ed.,
Paris, 1618.
For the missions of Canada proper, the series of _Jesuit Relations_,
as they are generally called, volumes issued in Paris, beginning
with the “Lettre du Père Charles l’Allemant,” Paris, 1627 (also vol.
xiii. of the _Mercure Français_), as _Relation de ce qui s’est passé
en la Nouvelle France en l’année MDCXXVI_, and continued annually
from the _Briève Relation du Voyage de la Nouvelle France_, by Father
Paul le Jeune, printed by Cramoisy at Paris in 1632, down to the
year 1672, comprising in all a series of forty-one volumes. Besides
the religious information which it was their main object to convey,
in order to interest the pious in France in their mission work, the
Jesuits in these _Relations_ give much information as to the progress
of geographical discovery, the resources and fauna of the country, the
Indian nations, their language, manners, and customs, their wars and
vicissitudes. The volumes have been much sought by collectors, and
the whole series was reprinted by the Canadian Government at Quebec
in 1858, in three large octavo volumes, under the title of _Relations
des Jésuites_. Though some _Relations_ were reprinted and translated
into Latin, complete sets have never been common. In Le Clercq’s
_Établissement de la Foi_ there is a bitter and satirical review of
these Jesuit _Relations_, but the writer evidently had only eight or
nine of the volumes; and Arnauld, the great enemy of the Jesuits,
having his attention drawn to them by Le Clercq’s work, found great
difficulty in getting copies of any, but finally discovered fourteen
in “a great library.” Dr. E. B. O’Callaghan drew attention to them in
a paper before the New York Historical Society, and several collectors
endeavored to complete sets. Mr. James Lenox obtained nearly all,
reprinting two that exist in almost unique copies. Matter was prepared
for subsequent volumes by the Superiors of the Canada missions,
and the _Relations_ for 1672-73, 1675, 1673-79, 1696, and separate
_Relations_ bearing on the Abenaki, Illinois, and Louisiana missions
have been printed to correspond with the old _Relations_; and many
of these were reprinted under the title of _Relations Inédites de la
Nouvelle France_, 2 vols., 12mo, Paris, 1861. The autobiography of
the missionary Chaumonot has also been issued (New York, 1858; Paris,
1869); and _Lives of Father Isaac Jogues and Brebeuf_, by Father
Felix Martin (Paris, 1873, etc.). One work called forth by the Jesuit
missions in Canada is the _Mœurs des Sauvages Amériquains comparées
dux mœurs des premiers Temps_, by Father Lafitau, long a missionary at
Sault St. Louis, and author also of a treatise on the Ginseng.[687]
[Illustration: IROQUOIS FIVE NATIONS AND MISSION SITES,
1656-1684 (_John S. Clark_, 1879).]
For the Louisiana mission there are some letters in the _Lettres
Édifiantes_, which are also given in Rt. Rev. W. I. Kip, _Early Jesuit
Missions in North America_, New York, 1847. The close of that mission
is described in Carayon, _Bannissement des Jésuites de la Louisiane_,
Paris, 1865. Besides the works in French, there is a _Breve Relatione
d’alcune Missione_, by Father Joseph Bressani, a Huron missionary
captured and tortured by the Mohawks. It appeared at Macerata in
1653, and a French translation of it by F. Félix Martin was issued
in Montreal in 1852. The work of Du Creux, _Historia Canadensis_,
Paris, 1664, gives a summary of the mission work of the Jesuits in
Canada. Father Marquette’s account of his voyage down the Mississippi
was first printed by Thevenot, _Recueil de Voyages_, Paris, 1681, and
was translated into Dutch and issued by Vander Aa. It was printed
from the original manuscript by Mr. James Lenox,—_Récit des Voyages
et des Descouvertes du R. Père Jacques Marquette_,—and had been
previously translated and published by J. G. Shea in his _Discovery and
Exploration of the Mississippi Valley_, New York, 1852.
* * * * *
The history of the Sulpitian missions is to be found chiefly in recent
works: Faillon, _Histoire de la Colonie Française en Canada_, 3 vols.,
Montreal, 1854; _Vie de la Sœur Bourgeoys_, 1853; _Vie de Mlle. Mance_,
2 vols., 1854. Belmont, _Histoire du Canada_, Quebec, 1840; Dollier
de Casson, _Histoire de Montreal_, Montreal, 1869; and _Voyage de MM.
Dollier et Galinée_, Montreal, 1875, are printed from manuscripts of
early missionaries of that body.
Of the missions founded by the Seminary of Quebec nothing has been
printed except the _Relation de la Mission du Mississippi du Séminaire
de Québec en_ 1700, New York, 1861. The vast and successful Spanish
missions, extending from the Chesapeake to the Gulf of California, have
a literature of their own, of which it is not our province to treat.
[Illustration]
NOTE.—The map on the preceding page is a reproduction of a part of a
map by Gen. John S. Clark, showing the missionary sites, 1656-1684,
in the Iroquois country. It appeared in Dr. Charles Hawley’s _Early
Chapters of Cayuga History_, Auburn, 1879, which had an Introduction on
the _Jesuit Relations_ by Dr. Shea.
THE JESUIT RELATIONS,
AND OTHER MISSION RECORDS.
A CHRONOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY BY THE EDITOR.
THE main bibliographical sources for this study pertain to the Jesuit
missions, as follows:—
LE PÈRE AUGUSTE CARAYON: _Bibliographie historique de la Compagnie de
Jésus, ... depuis leur Origine jusqu’à nos jours_, Paris, 1864, 4º.
[Illustration]
HENRY HARRISSE: _Notes sur la Nouvelle France_, 1545-1700, Paris,
1872. He says, no. 49, that no library (1870-71) has a complete set
of the _Jesuit Relations_; and adds that, including those of 1616 and
1627, a full set consists of fifty-four volumes, nine of which are
second editions, and one a Latin translation. He had inspected all but
one.
E. B. O’CALLAGHAN: a catalogue raisonnée (1632-1672), in the _N.
Y. Hist. Soc. Proc._, 1847, p. 140, also printed separately. Field
(_Indian Bibliography_, no. 1,146), in noticing this essay, says that
Dr. O’Callaghan enumerates only forty titles, of which the Carter-Brown
Collection had thirty-six; Harvard College, thirty-five; Henry C.
Murphy, twenty-nine. “Of the forty-eight now [1873] known to exist, Mr.
Murphy has secured all but three.” Dr. O’Callaghan at that time named
twenty libraries, public and private, in the United States which had
sets more or less imperfect. The volumes of some years were not very
scarce, those of 1648-1649 and 1653-1654 being known in ten copies in
these libraries, while there were at that time no copies at all of the
years 1655 and 1659; and these, marked by titles varying from the usual
form, are still the rarest of the series.
The O’Callaghan pamphlet was reissued at Montreal in 1850 in a French
translation by Father Martin, the superior of the Jesuits in Canada,
who amended the text in places, and included the Biard _Relation_ of
1613. He also gave an account of unprinted ones still preserved in
Canada which were written subsequent to 1672, when the annual printing
of them ceased.
Deriving help from this and other sources, Dr. O’Callaghan issued
privately, in 1853, a broadside, with an amended list of the
_Relations_ and their several principal repositories,—State Library,
Albany; Harvard College Library; the Parliamentary Library, Quebec;
and the private libraries of Mr. Carter-Brown of Providence, Mr. Lenox
of New York, Rev. Mr. Plante, Mr. O. H. Marshall of Buffalo, and Mr.
George Bancroft.
In June, 1870, Dr. O’Callaghan issued a circular asking information
of owners of the volumes for a second edition of his tract; but I
cannot learn that the new edition was ever published. At the sale of
Dr. O’Callaghan’s library December, 1882, his _Catalogue_, p. 105,
showed 31 of the series; and they brought $1,068.45. Dr. O’Callaghan
contributed a paper on the _Relations to the International Magazine_,
iii. 185.
CARTER-BROWN LIBRARY: _Catalogue_, vol. ii. p. 164.
LENOX LIBRARY: _Contributions_, no. ii., _The Jesuit Relation_, etc.,
New York, 1879. The _Relation_ of 1659, of which the copy in the
Library of the Canadian Parliament was supposed to be unique, was
reprinted in fac-simile by Mr. Lenox. In 1854, at the destruction of
the Parliamentary Library at Montreal, its series of these _Relations_,
forty-three in number (except eight), and including this unique volume,
was destroyed. This _Contribution_ shows the Lenox Library to possess
forty-nine out of the series of fifty-five, counting different editions
of the forty-one titles, from 1632 to 1672, making the fifty-five to
include two translations and twelve second or later editions. The
Lenox series lacks nos. 1, 28, and 35, as enumerated, and of no. 35
the Carter-Brown Library has the only copy known in America. The Lenox
Library also lacks the first issue of no. 2, and the second issue of
nos. 3 and 5. It has four duplicates, with slight variations.
These _Relations_ will also be found entered under their respective
authors in Sabin’s _Dictionary_ and in Field’s _Indian Bibliography_.
* * * * *
The reason of the rarity of these books may lie in part in the
smallness of the editions, but probably most in the avidity of readers,
and consequent destruction; for Charlevoix says, “They were at the time
extremely relished in France.” Of their character, the same authority
says: “There is no other source to which we can apply for instruction
as to the progress of religion among the savages, or for a knowledge of
these people, all of whose languages the Jesuits spoke. The style of
these _Relations_ is extremely simple; but this simplicity itself has
not contributed less to give them a great celebrity than the curious
and edifying matter they contain.” Father Martin, in his translation
of Bressani, speaks (p. 8) Of these _Relations_ as the most precious
monument, and sometimes the only source, of the history of Canada, and
praises the impartial use made of them by Bancroft and Sparks. Parkman
says of them: “Though the productions of men of scholastic training,
they are simple and often crude in style, as might be expected of
narratives hastily written in Indian lodges or rude mission-houses in
the forest, amid annoyances and interruptions of all kinds. In respect
to the value of their contents, they are exceedingly unequal.... The
closest examination has left me no doubt that these missionaries wrote
in perfect good faith, and that the _Relations_ hold a high place as
authentic and trustworthy historical documents. They are very scarce,
and no complete collection of them exists in America.” Shea (_Le
Clercq_, i. 381) has a note of the contemporary discrediting of the
_Relations_ by rival orders.
The series was reprinted by the Canadian Government in 1858 in
three octavo volumes, with bibliographical notes and synopses,
containing—vol. i. 1611, 1626, 1632 to 1641; ii. 1642 to 1655; iii.
1656 to 1672. These reprinted volumes are not now easy to find, and
have been lately priced at £7 10_s._ and 100 francs. Field, _Indian
Bibliography_, no. 1,177; Lenox, _Jesuit Relations_, p. 14.
There have been three supplemental and complemental issues of allied
and later _Relations_; one was printed at the expense of Mr. Lenox,
and the others had the editorial care of Dr. O’Callaghan and Dr.
Shea, of which notice will be taken under their respective dates. See
the lists of Shea’s “Cramoisy Series” (100 copies printed) in the
_Lenox Contributions_, p. 15; Field, _Indian Bibliography_, nos. 129
and 1,397; and _Menzies Catalogue_, no. 1,811; and the _O’Callaghan
Catalogue_ for Dr. O’Callaghan’s series (25 copies printed). Dr. Shea’s
acquaintance with the subject was first largely evinced by his _History
of the Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes of the United States_,
1529-1854, published, at the instance of Jared Sparks, in New York in
1855 (Field, no. 1,392); and he published a list of early missionaries
among the Iroquois in the _Documentary History of New York_, iv. 189.
The earliest summarizing of these _Relations_ or of those before
1656, was by the Père du Creux (or Creuxius, b. 1596, d. 1666) in his
_Historiæ Canadensis, sev Novæ Franciæ, libri decem_, Paris, 1664
(pp. xxvi, 810, 4, map and thirteen plates). There are copies in
Harvard College, Carter-Brown, Lenox, and New York Historical Society
libraries. Cf. Rich (1832), no. 333, £1 16_s._; Brinley, no. 82, $80;
Carayon, no. 1,322; Harrisse, no. 120; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 945,
with fac-simile of title; Leclerc, _Bibl. Amér._ no. 706, 500 fr.;
Ternaux, no. 823; Lenox, p. 10; O’Callaghan, no. 699; Huth, i. 367;
Sunderland, vol. ii. no. 3,561; Charlevoix (Shea’s edition), i. 81,
who says: “This extremely diffuse work was composed almost exclusively
from the Jesuit _Relations_. Father du Creux did not reflect that
details read with pleasure in a letter become unsupportable in a
continuous history.” “It contains, however,” says Dr. Shea, “some
curious statements, showing that he had other material.” The map,
_Tabula Novæ Franciæ anno 1660_, extends so as to include Hudson’s
Bay, Newfoundland, the Chesapeake, and Lake Superior; and it has a
corner-map, “Pars regionis Huronum hodie desertæ.” The map has been
reproduced in Martin’s translation of Bressani’s _Relation_ of 1653,
and is given in part on another page of the present volume.
The _Relations_ were not much noticed by writers at the time, and few
allusions to them appear in contemporaneous works. One of the few
books which drew largely from them is _Le Nouveau Monde ou l’Amérique
Chrestienne.... Par M^e Charles Chavlmer, Historiographe de France_.
Paris, 1659.
The story of the missions of New France necessarily makes part of
the general works of Charlevoix and the other Catholic historians,
particularly the _Histoire du Canada_ of Brasseur de Bourbourg, Paris,
1859, who depends largely upon Bancroft for his facts. Mr. Parkman,
not bound by the same ties, gives a view of the Jesuits’ character,
in his _Jesuits in North America_, which has been questioned by their
adherents. His book, however, is of the first importance; and Dr.
George E. Ellis, in the _Atlantic Monthly_, September, 1867, recounts,
in a review of the book, the historian’s physical disability, which
has from the beginning of his labor sadly impeded the progress of
his work. Cf. also Dr. Ellis’s sustained estimate of Parkman, in his
_Red Man and White Man in North America_, p. 259. The story of the
Jesuits’ trials contained in the _Lettres Edifiantes_ is translated
in Bishop W. I. Kip’s _Early Jesuit Missions in North America_, 1846,
and again, 1866. Cf. also _Magazine of American History_, iii. 767; M.
J. Griffin in _Canadian Monthly_, i. 344; W. B. O. Peabody’s “Early
Jesuit Missionaries in the Northwest,” in _Democratic Review_, May,
1844, reprinted in Beach’s _Indian Miscellany_; Judge Law on the same
subject, in _Wisconsin Historical Society’s Collections_, iii. 89; and
Thébaud on the natives and the missions, in _The Month_, June, 1877;
Poole’s _Index_ gives other references, p. 683. Dr. Shea, at the end of
his _Catholic Missions_, p. 503, gives a list of his sources printed
and in manuscript.
[Illustration: A CANADIAN (_from Creuxius_).]
Of the tribes encountered by the Jesuits, there is no better compact
account than Mr. Parkman gives in the Introduction to his _Jesuits in
North America_, where he awards (p. liv) well-merited praise to Lewis
H. Morgan’s _League of the Iroquois_, and qualified commendation to
Schoolcraft’s _Notes on the Iroquois_, and gives (p. lxxx) a justly
severe judgment on his _Indian Tribes_. Mr. Parkman’s Introduction
first appeared in the _North American Review_, 1865 and 1866.
[Illustration: THE OHIO VALLEY, 1600.
This sketch follows one by Mr. C. C. Baldwin, accompanying an article
on “Early Indian Migrations in Ohio,” in the _American Antiquarian_,
i. 228 (reprinted in _Western Reserve Historical Society’s Tracts_,
no. 47), in which he conjecturally places the position of the tribes
occupying that valley at the opening of the seventeenth century. The
key is as follows: 1, Ottawas; 2, Wyandots and Hurons: 3, Neutrals; 4,
Iroquois; 5, Eries; 6, Andastes, or Susquehannahs; 7, Algonquins; 8,
Cherokees; 9, Shawnees; 10, Miamies; 11, Illinois; 12, Arkansas; 13,
Cherokees. (On the Andastes see Hawley’s _Cayuga History_, p. 36.)
[Illustration]
There is another map of the position of the Indians in 1600 in George
Gale’s _Upper Mississippi_, Chicago, 1867, p. 49; and Dr. Edward
Eggleston gives one of wider scope in the _Century Magazine_, May,
1883, p. 98. Cf. Henry Harvey’s _History of the Shawnee Indians_,
1681-1854, Cincinnati, 1855; and a paper by D. G. Brinton on the
Shawnees and their migrations, in the _Historical Magazine_, x. 21.
Judge M. F. Force, in _Some Early Notices of the Indians of Ohio_,
Cincinnati, 1879, an address before the Philosophical and Historical
Society of Ohio, has tracked the changing habitations of the tribes
of that region. There is a paper by S. D. Peet on the location of
the Indian tribes between the Ohio and the Lakes, in the _American
Antiquarian_, i. 85. William H. Harrison controverted the view that
the Iroquois ever conquered the valley of the Ohio, in his “Discourse
on the Aborigines of the Valley of the Ohio,” which was printed at
Cincinnati in 1838, at Boston in 1840, and in the Historical and
Philosophical Society of Ohio’s _Transactions_, vol. i. part 2d, p.
217; but compare C. C. Baldwin’s “Iroquois in Ohio, and the Destruction
of the Eries,” in _Western Reserve Historical Society’s Tracts_, no.
40. David Cusick (a Tuscarora) published _Sketches of Ancient History
of the Six Nations_, at Tuscarora Village, 1825, and again at Lockport,
N. Y., 1848. An historical sketch of the Wyandots will be found in
the _Historical Magazine_, v. 263; and Peter Clarke (a Wyandot) has
published the _Origin and Traditional History of the Wyandots_. See
references in Poole’s Index under Hurons, Iroquois, Indians, etc.]
There is a rare book containing contemporary accounts of the savages,
which was written at Three Rivers in 1663, by the governor of that
place, the Sieur Pierre Boucher, and published in Paris in 1664, under
the title, _Histoire veritable et naturelle des Mœurs et Productions du
Pays de la Nouvelle France, vulgairement dite le Canada_. The author,
says Charlevoix (Shea’s edition, i. p. 80), should not be confounded
with the Jesuit of the same name; and he calls the book under
consideration a “superficial but faithful account of Canada.” There are
copies in the Harvard College, Lenox (_Jesuit Relations_, p. 10), and
Carter-Brown (_Catalogue_ ii. 941) libraries.[688]
Another early account is the _Mémoire sur les Mœurs ... des Sauvages_,
by Nicholas Perrot, which remained in manuscript till it was edited by
Father Tailhan, and printed in 1864.[689]
The Jesuit Lafitau published at Paris in 1724 his _Mœurs des Sauvages
Amériquains_ in two volumes, with various plates, which in the main
is confined to the natives of Canada, where he had lived long with
the Iroquois. Charlevoix said of his book, twenty years later, “We
have nothing so exact upon the subject;” and Lafitau continues to
hold high rank as an original authority, though his book is overlaid
with a theory of the Tartaric origin of the red race. Mr. Parkman
calls him the most satisfactory of the elder writers. (Field, no. 850;
Carter-Brown, vol. iii. nos. 344, 345, 472; Sabin, vol. x. p. 22.)
There was a Dutch version, with the same plates, in 1731.
Bacqueville de la Potherie’s _Histoire de l’Amérique Septentrionale_,
in four volumes, with a distinctive title to each (1722 and 1753), is
mainly a history of the Indians with which the French came in contact.
He wrote early in the last century, and his book saw several editions,
evincing the interest it created. His information is at second hand for
the early portions of the period covered (since Cartier); but of the
later times he becomes a contemporary authority. (Field, no. 66,)
Of less interest in relation to the seventeenth century is Le
Beau’s _Voyage Curieux et Nouveau parmi les Sauvages de l’Amérique
Septentrionale_, published at Amsterdam in 1738,—a work, however, of a
semi-historical character, (Field, no. 901.)
Cadwallader Colden’s _History of the Five Indian Nations_ was printed
by Bradford in New York in 1727, and is now very rare. Dr. Shea
reprinted it in 1866, and in his introduction and notes its somewhat
curious bibliographical history is learnedly traced. (Carter-Brown,
vol. iii. nos. 393, 394; Field, _Indian Bibliography_, 341; Menzies,
429, $210; Sabin, vol. v. p. 222.) The three later London editions
(1747, 1750, 1755) were altered somewhat by the English publishers,
without indicating the variations they introduced. (Carter-Brown,
vol. iii. nos. 847, 922, 1,049.) A portrait of Colden is given in the
_Historical Magazine_, ix. 1. Sulte, in his _Mélanges_, p. 184, has
an essay on the respective positions of the Iroquois and Algonquins
previous to the coming of the Europeans.
D. G. Brinton, at the end of chap. i. of his _Myths of the New World_,
characterizes the different writers on the mythologies of the Indians;
and Mr. Parkman, _Jesuits_, etc., p. lxxxviii, notes some of the
repositories of Iroquois legends.
A valuable paper on the origin of the Iroquois confederacy, by Horatio
Hale, is printed in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xix. 241; and Mr. C. C.
Baldwin has a paper on the Iroquois in Ohio in the _Western Reserve
Historical Society_, no. 40, and another paper on the early Indian
migrations, in no. 47. Mr. Hale has further extended our knowledge by
the curious learning of his _Iroquois Book of Rites_, Cincinnati, 1883;
and he also printed in the _American Antiquarian_, January and April,
1883 (also separately Chicago, 1883), a scholarly paper on _Indian
Migrations as evidenced by Language_.
So far as relates to the more easterly tribes coming within the range
of the Jesuits’ influence, Parkman’s description can be compared with
the plain matter-of-fact enumerations which make up the picture in
Palfrey’s _New England_, which are derived from authorities enumerated
in his notes. See various papers in the _Canadian Journal_.
[Illustration]
The general historians of New France necessarily give more or less
attention to the study of the Indians as the Jesuits found them; and
such a study is an integral part of Dr. George E. Ellis’s learned
monograph, _The Red Man and the White Man in North America_, whose
account of the different methods of converting the natives, pursued by
the French and the English, may be compared with that in Archbishop
Spalding’s _Miscellanea_, i. 333.
* * * * *
[In the enumeration below the initials of the repositories of copies
signify: =C.=, Library of Congress; =CB.=, Carter-Brown Library,
Providence; =F.=, Mrs. J. F. Fisher, Alverthorpe, Penn.; =GB.=, Hon.
George Bancroft, Washington; =HC.=, Harvard College; =J.=, Jesuits’
College, Georgetown, D.C.; =K.=, Charles H. Kalbfleisch, New York;
=L.=, Lenox Library, N.Y.; =M.=, the late Henry C. Murphy, Brooklyn,
L.I.; =OHM.=, O. H. Marshall, Buffalo; =NY.=, New York State Library,
Albany; =SJ.=, St. John’s College, Fordham, N.Y.; =V.=, Catholic
Bishop of Vincennes, Indiana.
Space is not taken in these notes to give full titles nor exhaustive
collations, which can be found in the authorities referred to, the
figures following them being to _numbers_; but the references to the
_Lenox Contributions_ is necessarily to pages.]
=1580.=—The Lenox bibliography begins the series of allied works with
_A Shorte and briefe narration of the two Navigations and Discoveries
to the northweast partes, called Newe France_, London, 1580. Harrisse,
_Notes sur la Nouvelle France,_ no. 5.
=1605.=—De Monts’ Commission. See chapter iv.
=1609.=—_Coppie d’une lettre envoyée de la Nouvelle France, par le
Sieur Cōbes,_ Lyons. (Harrisse, no. 20; Lenox, p. 3; Sabin, xiii. no.
56,083.) Dated “Brest-en-Canada, 13 Février, 1608.” The Carter-Brown
_Catalogue_ (vol. ii. no. 80) shows only a manuscript copy. Brunet
speaks of a single copy, sold and bought for America.
=1610.=—_La Conversion des Savages ... baptizés en la Nouvelle
France_, Paris. Harrisse, no. 21; Lenox, p. 3; Carter-Brown, vol. ii.
no. 99.
=1610.=—_Lettre missive, touchant la conversion ... du grand Sagamos_,
Paris. Lenox, p. 3; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 103 (manuscript only.)
=1611.=—_Missio Canadensis. Epistola ex Porturegali in Acadia._ This
is a reprint, made for Dr. O’Callaghan at Albany in 1870 (25 copies),
following the letter as given in the _Annuæ litteræ Societatis Jesu_,
1611 and 1612. (Cf. Lenox, p. 18; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 119.)
Carayon says that this Annual extends from 1581 (imprint, 1583) to
1614; and then again, 1650-1654. There are incomplete sets in the
Harvard College and Carter-Brown libraries. From the same source Dr.
O’Callaghan also reprinted _Relatio rerum gestarum in Nova Francia_,
1613, which relates to Biard’s mission.
=1613.=—_Contract d’association des Jésuites au trafique de Canada_,
Lyons. (Harrisse, no. 28.) Tross’s reprint on vellum (12 copies only)
is in the Lenox (p. 4) and Carter-Brown (vol. ii. no. 148) Collections.
=1611-1613.=—_Canadicæ Missionis Relatio ab anno 1611 usque ad annum
1613, auctore Josepho Juvencio._ Dr. O’Callaghan’s reprint, no. 4.
(O’Callaghan, no. 1,980; Lenox, p. 18.)
=1612.=—_Relation dernière de ce qui s’est passé au voyage du Sieur de
Poutrincourt en la Nouvelle France_, Paris. A description of the voyage
of Biard and Masse from Dieppe, Jan. 26, 1611. (Cf. Harrisse, no. 26.)
COPY: HC.
Upon this early mission, see Carayon, _Première mission des Jésuites
au Canada, lettres et documents inédits_, Paris, 1864. (Sabin, vol.
iii. no. 10,792.) These letters and others are cited by Harrisse,
nos. 397-400, 404-406. (Cf. Parkman’s _Pioneers_, p. 263.) Charlevoix
(Shea’s ed., p. 87) cites Juvency’s _Historiæ Societatis Jesu pars
quinta_, book xv., Rome, 1710, as elucidating events in Acadia in
1611. (Harrisse, no. 402.) For the trading relations of the Jesuits,
see Lescarbot (1618), p. 665; Champlain (1632), p. 100, and references
in Harrisse, no. 28, and Parkman’s _Old Régime_, p. 328. These early
Acadian missions are treated in the _Catholic World_, xii. 628, 826;
xxii. 666, and in _Historical Magazine_, xv. 313, 391; xvi. 41.
The subject of the Capuchins and other Catholics on the Maine coast at
an early date is followed in _Historical Magazine_, viii. 301, and in
_Maine Historical Collections_, i. 323. Cf. Poor’s _Gorges_, p. 98.
=1613-1614.=—_Relatio rerum gestarum in Nova-Francia Missione annis
1613 et 1614._ Lugduni. No. 6 of Dr. O’Callaghan’s reprints, Albany,
1871. Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 170; O’Callaghan, no. 1,250; Lenox, p.
19.
=1616.=—_Relation de la Nouvelle France ... faicte par le P.
Pierre Biard_, Lyons. Chaps. i. to viii. are on the country and its
inhabitants. Chap. xi. is on the arrival of the Jesuits in 1611; and
in Harrisse’s opinion, it constitutes a reply to the _Factum escrit et
publié contre les Jésuites_,—a publication of which we can find no
other trace. It also describes the labors of the missionaries and the
cruelties of Argall. See chap. iv.
See Harrisse, no. 30, on the question of an earlier edition in 1612.
The Supplément of Brunet calls this 1612 edition spurious. (Carayon,
p. 178; Lenox, p. 4, for a copy, with title in fac-simile by Pilinski,
which yet cost 1,000 francs, as per Leclerc, no. 2,482.) A reprint,
“presque en fac-simile,” was made at Albany in 1871 from a copy owned
by Rufus King, of Jamaica, L. I. The Carter-Brown (vol. ii. no. 178)
has only this fac-simile, and it is noted in O’Callaghan, nos. 1,207,
1,971, where it is stated only twenty-five were printed, at $25 per
copy.
=1626.=—_Coppie de la lettre escripte par le R. P. Denys Jamet,
Commissaire des PP. Recollestz de Canada._ Dated Quebec, Aug. 15, 1626.
REFERENCES: Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 315. Dr. Shea thinks the date
should be 1620. It is from Sagard, p. 58.
=1626.=—_Relation de ce qui s’est passé en la Nouvelle France, 1626.
Envoyée au Père Hierosme L’Allemant par Charles L’Allemant._ Paris,
1629. Reprinted (no. 7) in O’Callaghan’s series, from the text in
_Mercure François_, vol. xiii.
REFERENCES: Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 351; O’Callaghan, nos. 1,210,
1,250, 1,982; Lenox, p. 19. Le Clercq doubts L’Allemant’s authorship;
but see Shea’s _Le Clercq_, i. 329.
=1627.=—_Lettre du Père Charles l’Allemant, Supérieur de la mission de
Canadas_, Paris, 1627. It bears date Aug. 1, 1626.
REFERENCES: Sabin, vol. x. no. 38,680; Harrisse, no. 41; Faribault,
no. 361; Ternaux, no. 496; Carayon, p. 179; Lenox, p. 4; O’Callaghan,
no. 1,250.
It was reprinted in 1871 in O’Callaghan’s series. (Carter-Brown,
vol. ii. no. 328; O’Callaghan, no. 1,208.) It first appeared in the
_Mercure François_, xiii. 1. This last publication appeared in Paris,
1611-1646, in twenty-three volumes, and contains much illustrative of
these early missions. There are sets of the _Mercure_ in the Boston
Athenæum, Harvard College, Carter-Brown, Boston Public libraries, etc.
The reprint of L’Allemant’s _Lettre_ in the Quebec edition of the
_Relations_, follows the text of the _Mercure_, which corresponds,
as is not always the case of these early _Relations_, with the
contemporary separate text, as Mr. Lenox has pointed out in the
_Historical Magazine_, iii. 19. Carayon, in his _Première Mission_,
translates from another letter of L’Allemant, preserved at Rome, and
of the same date, another account of these early Jesuit labors, which
he sent to Père Vitelleschi. L’Allemant’s name in the contemporary
publications is spelled with a single or double _l_, indifferently.
Another of O’Callaghan’s series (Albany, 1870), was _Copie de trois
Lettres escrittes en 1625 et 1626 par le P. Charles Lallemand_.
O’Callaghan, nos. 1,209, 1,250; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 316.
=1629.=—_Lettre du Rev. Père l’Allemand au Rev. Père Supérieur du
Collège des Jésuites à Paris, 22 Novembre, 1629._ It is found in
Champlain’s _Voyages_, and a reprint (no. 3) is in O’Callaghan’s
series, Albany, 1870. O’Callaghan, nos. 1,250, 1,979; Sabin, vol. x.
no. 38,681; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 390; Carayon, p. 179; Lenox, p.
18. It is translated in Shea’s _Perils of the Ocean and Wilderness_.
* * * * *
[The regular series of so-called RELATIONS, addressed to the
Provincial of the order in France, begins here.]
=1632.=—LE JEUNE. _Brieve Relation du Voyage de la Nouvelle France,
fait au mois d’Avril dernier, par le P. Paul le Jeune._ Paris, 1632.
Pages 68, one leaf for the Privilege.
CONTENTS: The arrival and reinstatement of the order in Quebec, with
notices of the natives.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,260; Harrisse, no. 49; Sabin, vol. x. no.
39,946. Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 381, with fac-simile of title.
COPIES: =CB.=, =GB.=, =M.= Others in the Arsenal and National
Libraries at Paris, etc.
It was reprinted in the _Mercure François_ for 1633.
=1633.=—LE JEUNE. _Relation de ce qui s’est passé en la Nouvelle
France en l’année 1633._ Paris, 1634. Pages 216 and Privilege, with
a cupid in the vignette, and errors of pagination. A second issue
has a ram’s head for a vignette, and some typographical variations.
These vignettes are at the top of p. 3; that with two storks is on the
titlepage.
CONTENTS: Champlain’s arrival, and that of Brebeuf and Masse; Le
Jeune’s difficulties with the native language.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,261; Harrisse, nos. 55, 56; Sabin, vol. x.
no. 39,947-48; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 417; O’Callaghan, no. 1,212.
(2d issue).
COPIES: =CB.=, =GB.=, =HC.= (3d issue), =M.=
There is an abridgment in the _Mercure François_ for 1633.
=1634.=—LE JEUNE. _Relation ... en l’année 1634._ Paris, 1635. Pages
4, 342, with pp. 321-22 numbered 323-24. A second issue corrects p.
321, but makes 337 to be 339.
CONTENTS: Champlain’s Domestic Life; Labors of Missionaries; Habits of
Indians, and (chap. 9) Account of their Languages; Le Jeune’s Journal,
August, 1633, to April, 1634, while he was living with the savages.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,263. Harrisse, nos. 60, 61; Sabin, vol. x.
no. 39,949; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 307; Lenox, p. 4; O’Callaghan,
no. 1,235; Harrassowitz (1882, 180 marks).
COPIES: =CB.=, =F.=, =GB.=, =HC.=, =K.=, =L.= (1st ed.), =M.=
=1635.=—LE JEUNE. _Relation ... en l’année 1635._ Paris, 1636. Pages
4, 246, 2.
CONTENTS: Report, dated August 28, 1635, ending on p. 112; Report from
the Huron country by Brebeuf, with “divers sentimens.” Report from
Cape Breton by Perrault.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,264; Harrisse, nos. 58, 63; Carter-Brown,
vol. ii. no. 436; Lenox, p. 5; Sabin, vol. x. nos. 39,950, 39,951;
O’Callaghan, no. 1,214; Leclerc, no. 778 (140 francs). Priced (1883),
$50.
COPIES: =CB.=, =GB.=, =HC.=, =L.=, =M.=, =OHM.=
=1635.=—LE JEUNE. _Relation_, etc. Avignon, 1636.
CONTENTS: Same as the Paris edition.
REFERENCES: Harrisse, no 64; Lenox, p. 5.
COPIES: The Lenox _Contributions_ claims its copy as the only one now
known; if so, a third edition is represented in a defective copy noted
in O’Callaghan, no. 1,215.
=1636.=—LE JEUNE. _Relation ... en l’année 1636._ Paris, 1637. Pages
8, 272, 223.
CONTENTS: Report; Death of Champlain, etc.; Brebeuf’s Huron report,
with account of the language, customs, etc.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,265; Harrisse, no. 65; Sabin, vol. x. no.
39,952; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 446; Lenox, p. 5; Harrassowitz,
1883 (125 marks).
COPIES: =CB.=, =HC.=, =K.=, =L.= It does not appear whether copies
=GB.=, =M.=, =OHM.=, and =V.= are of this or of the following edition.
=1636.=—LE JEUNE. _Relation_, etc. Paris, 1637. Pages 199 in smaller
type than the preceding edition; the Huron report sometimes wanting,
though mentioned in the title, while it was not mentioned in the
preceding edition; but Sobolewski describes a copy which has this Huron
report, occupying 163 pages.
REFERENCES: Harrisse, no. 66; Lenox, p. 5.
=1637.=—LE JEUNE. _Relation ... en l’année 1637._ Rouen, 1638. Pages
10,336 (pp. 193-196 omitted in paging), 256, with vignette of I. H. S.
supported by two angels on the title. A second issue has the I. H. S.
surrounded by rays, and there are other typographical changes in the
title only. A folding woodcut of fireworks between pp. 18 and 19.
CONTENTS: Report about the missions and the Huron Seminary near
Quebec; Report by Lemercier from the Huron country, dated 1637.
REFERENCES: Harrisse, nos. 67, 68; Sabin, vol. x. no. 39,953;
Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 457; Lenox, p. 5; O’Callaghan, no. 1,216;
Harrassowitz, 1880 (150 francs); Leclerc, 779 (200 francs).
COPIES: =CB.=, =HC.=, =K.=, =M.=, =OHM.=, =L.= (both varieties).
Harrisse, p. xiv, says the oldest original document he has found is a
memorandum of a gift, August 16, 1637, by the Duchesse d’Aiguillon to
the Réligieuses Hospitalières of Quebec (cf. also his no. 457).
=1638.=—LE JEUNE. _Relation ... en l’année 1638._ Paris, 1638. Pages
4, 78, 2, 68. A second edition has pp. 4, 78, 76. Harrisse says it is
distinguishable by the last page being marked 67, correctly, and page
39 of the Huron report having the word _fidelle_ instead of _fidèle_;
but the whole volume is reset.
CONTENTS: Report,—Failure of the Huron Seminary; Persecution of the
Fathers; Lemercier’s Report from the Huron Country, 1637-38, with
account of Lunar Eclipse, December, 1637.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,267; Harrisse, nos. 69, 70; Sabin, vol.
x. nos. 39,954, 39,955; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 458; Lenox,
p. 5; O’Callaghan, no. 1,217; Stevens, _Bibl. Hist._, no. 1,120;
Harrassowitz, 1883 (125 marks).
COPIES: =CB.=, =GB.=, =HC.=, =K.=, =L.= (both eds.), =OHM.=, =NY.=
Harrisse, p. 62, says a Latin version is included “dans le recueil du
P. Trigaut, Cologne, 1653.”
=1639.=—LE JEUNE. _Relation ... en l’année 1639._ Paris, 1640. Pages
8, 166, 2, 174. A second edition was a page-for-page reprint, with
typographical changes on almost every page. The Privilege on the first
reads, _Par le Roy en son Conseil_, and is signed March 26, 1638; the
word _son_ is omitted in the second, and the date of this is Dec. 20,
1639.
CONTENTS: Regular Report; Huron Report, June, 1638, to June, 1639.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,268; Harrisse, nos. 74, 75; Sabin, vol.
x. no. 39,956; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. pp. 481, 482; Lenox, p. 6;
O’Callaghan, no. 1,218; Harrassowitz, 1883 (125 marks).
COPIES: =CB.= (both eds.), =GB.=, =HC.=, =K.=, =L.= (both eds.).
=1640.=—VIMONT. _Relation ... en l’année_ M. DC. XL. Paris, 1641.
Pages 8, 197, 3, 196; but 191 and 192 are repeated.
CONTENTS: Report on the State of the Colony and the Missions; Report
from the Huron Country by Hierosme Lalemant, mentioning a map of the
Western country by Ragueneau.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,269; Harrisse, no. 76; Carter-Brown, vol.
ii. p. 495; Lenox, p. 6; O’Callaghan, no. 1,219; Dufossé, no. 8,660
(125 francs); Harrassowitz, 1883 (125 marks).
COPIES: =CB.=, =GB.=, =HC.=, =K.=, =L.=, =OHM.=
We derive the earliest mention of Jean Nicolet’s explorations about
Green Bay from this _Relation_, and what it says is translated in
Smith’s _Wisconsin_, vol. iii. See chapter v. of the present volume.
=1640-1641.=—VIMONT. _Relation ... ès années 1640 et 1641._ Paris,
1642. Pages 8, 216, 104. Chap. vi. is numbered viii., and there are
other irregularities.
CONTENTS: Report,—Missions News; Wars with the Iroquois; Tadousac
Mission; Report from the Huron Country by Lalemant, June, 1640, to
June, 1641; First mention of Niagara as Onguiaahra; a Huron Prayer
interlined.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,720; Harrisse, no. 77; Carter-Brown, vol.
ii. p. 509; Lenox, p. 6; O’Callaghan, no. 1,220; Harrassowitz, 1883
(100 marks). Cf. Faillon, _Hist. de la Col. Française_, vols. i. and
ii., chaps. 4 and 5, on this Iroquois War.
COPIES: =CB.=, =GB.=, =HC.=, =K.=, =L.= (two copies, with slight
variations), =OHM.=
=1642.=—VIMONT. _Relation ... en l’année 1642._ Paris, 1643. Pages 8,
191, 1, 170; pp. 76, 77, omitted in paging.
CONTENTS: Report,—Founding of Montreal; Capture of Jogues; Lunar
Eclipse, April 4, 1642; Lalemant’s Report from the Huron Country,
June, 1641, to June, 1642.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,271; Harrisse, no. 80; Carter-Brown, vol.
ii. no. 528; Lenox, p. 6; O’Callaghan, no. 1,221; Harrassowitz, 1883
(125 marks); Dufossé, 1878 (180 francs).
COPIES: =CB.=, =GB.=, =HC.=, =K.=, =L.=, =M.=, =NY.=, =V.=
On Jogues’ exploration to the Sault Ste. Marie, see Margry,
_Découvertes_, i. 45; Shea’s _Charlevoix_, i. 137.
For references on the founding and early history of Montreal, see
Harrisse, p. 79. The Abbé Faillon’s _Histoire de la Colonie Française
en Canada_, Paris, 1865-1866, three volumes, with maps, pertains
chiefly to Montreal, and was left incomplete at the author’s death.
[Illustration: MONTREAL AND ITS VICINITY.
Faillon, _Histoire de la Colonie Française_, iii. 375, gives a map of
Montreal preserved in the French archives,—_Plan de Villemarie et des
premières rues projetées pour l’établissement de la Haute Ville_. This
represents the town at about 1665. There is a fac-simile of another
plan of about 1680 preserved in the library of the Canadian Parliament,
the original being at Paris (_Catalogue_, 1858, p. 1,615). A plan of
1685 is given in _l’Héroïne Chrétienne du Canada, ou Vie de Mlle. le
Ber, Villemarie_, 1860. Charlevoix gives a map with the old landmarks,
and it is reproduced in Shea’s edition, ii. 170. A later one is in La
Potherie, 1753 edition, ii. 311 (given above), and one of about 1759,
in Miles’s _Canada_, p. 296.]
He derives new matter from the public archives in France, goes over
afresh the whole history of Champlain’s career, and throws light on
points left dark by Charlevoix and the earlier narrators, and is in
some respects the best of the recent French historians; but Parkman
(_Jesuits_, p. 193) cautions us that his partisan character as an
ardent and prejudiced Sulpitian should be well kept in mind (cf. Field,
p. 518; and chap. vii. of the present volume). Dollier de Casson’s
_Histoire de Montréal_, 1640-1672, is a manuscript in the Mazarin
Library in Paris, of which Mr. Parkman has a copy. It was printed in
1871 by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, in the third
series of their historical documents. Parkman refers to (_Jesuits_,
p. 209), and gives extracts from, _Les véritables Motifs ... de la
Société de Notre Dame de Montréal pour la Conversion des Sauvages_,
which was published in 1643 as a defence against aspersions of the
“Hundred Associates.” It was probably printed at Paris. A copy some
years since passed into an American collection at 800 francs. A
transcript of a copy, collated by Margry, was used in the reprint
issued in the _Mémoires de la Société historique de Montreal_, in
1880, under the editing of the Abbé Verreau, who attributes it to
Olier, while Faillon has ascribed it to Laisné de la Marguerie. The
editor adds some important “notices bibliographiques et documentaires;”
some “notes historiques par le Commandeur Viger,” from an unpublished
work,—_Le Petit Registre_; a “liste des premiers Colons de Montreal.”
Of the older authorities, Le Clercq and Charlevoix (Shea’s edition,
note, ii. 129) are useful; but Charlevoix, as Parkman says, was not
partial to Montreal. The Société historique de Montreal began in 1859
the publication of _Mémoires et Documents relatifs a l’histoire du
Canada_. The first number, “Dè l’Esclavage en Canada,” was the joint
work of J. Viger and L. H. Lafontaine, but it has little matter falling
within the present period; the second, “De la Famille des Lauson,” the
governor of New France after 1651, by Lafontaine, with an Appendix on
the “Vice-Rois et Lieutenants Generaux des rois de France en Amerique,”
by R. Bellemare; the third, “Ordonances de M^{r} Paul de Chomedey,
Sieur de Maisonneuve, premier gouverneur de Montreal,” etc; the fourth,
“Règne Militaire en Canada;” the fifth, “Voyage de Dollier et Galinée.”
See a paper on Montreal and its founder, Maisonneuve, in the _Canadian
Antiquarian_, January, 1878. Concerning the connection of M. Olier with
the founding of Montreal and the schemes connected with it for the
conversion of the savages, see Faillon, _Vie de M. Olier_, Paris, 1873,
iii. 397, etc., and references there cited; and also see Faillon, _Vie
de Mdlle. Mance_, Paris, 1854, and Parkman in _Atlantic Monthly_, xix.
723.
=1642-1643.=—VIMONT. _Relation ... en l’années 1642 et 1643_. Paris,
1644. Pages 8, 309, 3.
CONTENTS: Report,—Algonquin Letter, with interlinear Translation;
Founding of Sillery; Tadousac; Five Letters from Père Jogues about his
Captivity among the Iroquois, beginning p. 284, giving, in substance
only, the Latin narrative mentioned below; Declaration of the Company
of New France, that the Jesuits took no part in their trade; Further
notice of Nicolet’s Exploration towards the Mississippi.
[Illustration: THE SITE OF MONTREAL.
From Lescarbot’s map of 1609, showing the Mountain and the Indian
town, Hochelaga, the site of Montreal. Newton Bosworth’s _Hochelaga
Depicta_ was published in Montreal in 1839.]
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,272; Harrisse, no. 81; Carter-Brown, vol.
ii. no. 552; Lenox, p. 6; O’Callaghan, no. 1,222.
COPIES: =CB.=, =F.=, =GB.=, =HC.=, =L.= (two copies, slightly
different), =M.=, =SJ.=, =V.=
Nicolet’s explorations, which have usually been put in 1638-39,
were fixed by Sulté in 1634; cf. his _Mélanges_, Ottawa, 1876, and
Draper’s annotations in the _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, viii.
188, and _Canadian Antiquarian_, viii. 157. This view is sustained
in C. W. Butterfield’s _Jean Nicolet_, Cincinnati, 1881. Cf. Margry,
_Découvertes_, i. 47; Creuxius, _Historia Canadensis_, and the modern
writers,—Parkman, _La Salle_: Harrisse, _Notes_; Margry, in _Journal
de l’Instruction publique_, 1862; Gravier, _La Salle_; etc. See also
chap. v. of the present volume.
=1643-1644.=—VIMONT. _Relation ... ès années 1643 et 1644._ Paris,
1645. Pages 8, 256, 4, 147 (marked 174).
CONTENTS: Report, giving account of the Capture of Father Bressani;
Huron Report by Hierosme Lalemant; War of the Five Nations against the
Hurons.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,273; Harrisse, no. 83; Carter-Brown, vol.
ii. no. 576; Lenox, p. 6. O’Callaghan, no. 1,223. Recently priced at
$50.
COPIES: =CB.=, =GB.=, =HC.=, =L.=, =M.=, =OHM.=
Father F. G. Bressani was in the country from 1642 to 1645, and in
his _Breve Relatione d’alcune missioni de PP. della Compagnia di
Giesu nella Nuova Francia_, Macerata, 1653, pp. iv, 127, he gave an
account of the rise and progress of the Huron mission. He promised a
map and plates, but they do not appear in the copies known, of which
two are in the Carter-Brown (_Catalogue_, vol. ii. no. 750) and Lenox
(_Contributions_, p. 8) libraries; and others were sold in the Brinley
(no. 67) and O’Callaghan (no. 1,232) sales. Cf. Carayon, p. 1,317;
Leclerc, no. 684 (350 francs); and Shea’s _Charlevoix_, p. 80. Père
Martin had to bring a copy from Rome to make his French translation,
_Relation abrégée de quelques missions ... dans la Nouvelle France_,
Montreal, 1852. This version had the Creuxius map, as already stated;
another of the Huron country (p. 280), and numerous notes, with a
memoir of Bressani by the editor. Cf. Parkman’s _Jesuits_, p. 253, with
references; Shea’s _Charlevoix_, ii. 174, with note, and his _Perils
of the Ocean and Wilderness_, p. 104; O’Callaghan’s _New Netherland_;
Archbishop Spalding’s _Miscellanea_.
[Illustration]
The first martyr of the Huron mission was Père Antoine Daniel,
killed July 4, 1648 (Parkman’s _Jesuits_, p. 373). Field (_Indian
Bibliography_, p. 146) says some curious, though perhaps not very
authentic, information regarding the Hurons can be got from Sieur
Gendron’s _Quelques Particularitéz du Pays des Hurons, par le Sieur
Gendron_, which appeared in Davity’s _Déscription Générale de
l’Amerique_, edited by Jean Baptiste de Rocoles, Troyes et Paris, 1660,
and was reprinted in New York in 1868. Cf. Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no.
873; Lenox, p. 18; and Field, no. 598. A fac-simile of a corner map in
Creuxius’s larger map, giving the Huron country, is given herewith.
Parkman also gives a modern map with the missions and villages marked,
and tells the fate of this people after their dispersement, at the end
of his _Jesuits_. See _Canadian Monthly_, ii. 409.
[Illustration]
Dr. Shea gives the following list of martyrs among the Canadian
Jesuits, with the dates of their deaths: Isaac Jogues, 1646; Antoine
Daniel, 1648; Jean Brebeuf, Gabriel Lallemant, Charles Garnier, and
Natalis Chabanel, 1649; Jacques Buteux, 1652; Leonard Garreau, 1656,
and René Menard, 1661. And of the Sulpitians: Guillaume Vignal and
Jacques Le Maître, 1661. _Les Jésuites-Martyrs du Canada_, Montreal,
1877, includes Martin’s translation of Bressani’s _Relation Abrégée_,
and sections on the “Caractère des Sauvages et de leur pays,” on their
conversion, and on the “Mort de Quelqes Pères.”
_1644-1645._—VIMONT. _Relation ... ès années 1644 et 1645._ Paris,
1646. Pages 8, 183, 1.
CONTENTS: Missions News; Incursions of the Five Nations; Letter from
Lalemant about the Huron Mission, beginning on p. 136.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,274; Harrisse, no. 84; Carter-Brown, vol.
ii. no. 594; Lenox, p. 6; Dufossé, no. 8,663.
COPIES: =CB.=, =HC.=, =L.=, =M.=, =V.=
_1645-1646._—HIEROSME LALEMANT. _Relation ... ès années 1644 et 1645._
Paris, 1647. Pages 6, 184, 128.
CONTENTS: Report,—Missions to the Iroquois; Jogues among the Mohawks;
Huron Report by Paul Ragueneau, May, 1645, to May, 1646.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,275; Harrisse, no. 86; Sabin, vol. x. no.
38,684; Carter-Brown, vol ii. no. 619; Lenox, p. 7; O’Callaghan,
1,224; Harrassowitz, 1883 (160 marks).
COPIES: =CB.=, =GB.=, =HC.= (two copies), =K.=, =L.= (two copies),
=M.=, =NY.=, =V.=
Masse died May 12, 1646, and this _Relation_ contains an account of him.
From October, 1645, to June, 1668, there are journals of the Jesuit
missionaries preserved in the archives of the Séminaire at Quebec,
which give details not originally intended for the public eye, but
which now form an interesting supplement to the series for the years
1645-1668, except that there is a gap between Feb. 5, 1654 and Oct. 25,
1656. These journals were printed at Quebec in 1871, as _Le Journal
des Jésuites; publié par les Abbés Laverdière et Casgrain_. Cf.
Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,009, where it is stated that the greater
part of the edition was destroyed by fire. A continuation of this
Journal was in the hands of William Smith, historian of Canada; but
is now lost. The _Amer. Cath. Quarterly, U. S. Cath. Mag._, and _The
Month_ contain various papers on the missions. See Poole’s _Index_.
=1647.=—HIEROSME LALEMANT. _Relation ... en l’année 1647._ Paris,
1648. Pages 8, 276; paging irregular from p. 209 to p. 228. Some copies
have a repeated _de_ in the title.
CONTENTS: The Mission of Jogues among the Mohawks, and a narrative of
his death begins p. 124; Missions among the Abenakis.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,276; Harrisse, no. 87; Sabin, vol. x. no.
38,685; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 652; Lenox, p. 7; O’Callaghan, no.
1,225; Harrassowitz, 1883 (160 marks); Dufossé, no. 5,603 (190 francs).
COPIES: =CB.=, =F.=, =GB.=, =HC.=, =J.= (two copies), =K.=, _L._ (two
copies), =M.=, =NY.=, =V.=
After Jogues’ captivity among the Mohawks, and his mutilations, and
his rescue by the Dutch, he wrote an account of _Novum Belgium_ in
1643-1644, which remained in manuscript till Dr. Shea printed it with
notes in 1862, as explained in a note to chap. ix. of the present
volume. Jogues now went to France, but returned shortly to brave once
more the perils of a missionary’s life, and this second venture he did
not survive. His own account of this was preserved, according to Père
Martin, in the archives of the College of Quebec down to 1800, and
according to Dr. Shea passed into the hands of the English Government,
and was used by Smith in compiling his _History of Canada_, Quebec,
1815, and has not been seen since. “It is given apparently in substance
in the Relation of 1646.”—Shea’s _Charlevoix_, ii. 188.
Dr. Shea also edited in English the “Jogues Papers” in the _N. Y. Hist.
Soc. Coll._, 2d ser., vol. iii., including the account of Jogues’
captivity among the Mohawks; and he repeated the narrative in his
_Perils of the Ocean and Wilderness_, p. 16. The original is a Latin
letter, dated Rennselaerswyck, Aug. 5, 1643, of which there is a sworn
copy preserved at Montreal, which differs somewhat from the printed
copy as given in Alegambe’s _Mortes illustres_, Rome, 1667, p. 616
(Carayon, no. 79); and in Tanner’s _Societas Jesu_, Prague, 1675;
and the German translation of it, _Die Gesellschaft Jesu_, Prague,
1683. Cf. Carter-Brown, vol. ii. nos. 1,136, 1,274; Field, _Indian
Bibliography_, 1,530; Stevens, _Bibliotheca Hist._ 2,017. The letter
is badly translated in Bressani’s _Breve Relatione_, p. 77, but Martin
gives it better in his version of Bressani (p. 188). Details, more or
less full, can be found in Andrada’s _Claros Varones_, Madrid, 1666;
Creuxius, _Historia Canadensis_, pp. 338, 378; the Dutch _Church
History_ of Hazart, vol. iv.; Barcia, _Ensayo Chronologico_, Madrid,
1723, p. 205; Carayon, _Première Mission_; the Bishop of Buffalo’s
_Missions in Western New York_, Buffalo, 1862; and of course in
Ferland, Parkman (_Jesuits_, pp. 106, 211, 217, 304), and the other
modern historians. A portrait of Jogues is given in Shea’s edition of
the _Novum Belgium_, and in his _Charlevoix_, ii. 141.
=1647-1648.=—HIEROSME LALEMANT. _Relation ... ès années 1647 et 1648._
Paris, 1649. Pages 8, 158, blank leaf, 135.
CONTENTS: Dreuillettes among the Abenakis; Huron Country Report by
Ragueneau, with accounts of the Great Lakes and the Native Tribes upon
them; The Five Nations; The Delawares (Andastes); New Sweden, Niagara
Falls, etc.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,277; Harrisse, no. 89; Sabin, vol. x. no.
38,686; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 673; Lenox, p. 7; O’Callaghan, no.
1,226; Sunderland, vol. iii. no, 7,218.
COPIES: =CB.=, =HC.=, =K.=, =L.= (2 copies), =M.=, =NY.=, =V.=
[Illustration]
Father Gabriel Dreuillettes, in the interest of the Abenakis mission,
subsequently made a journey in 1651 to Boston, to negotiate a
league between the New England colonies, the Canadian authorities
and the Abenakis against the Iroquois. The papers appertaining
were recovered by Dr. Shea and printed in New York in 1866, as
_Recueil de Pièces sur la Négociation entre la Nouvelle France et
la Nouvelle Angleterre ès années 1648 et suivantes_. A Latin letter
from Dreuillettes to Winthrop, which makes a part of this book, had
earlier been printed separately in 1864 by Dr. Shea, and again in
1869. The original manuscript was found among the Winthrop Papers,
and is now in the cabinet of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
(Field, _Indian Bibliography_, pp. 460, 461; Sabin, vol. v. p. 536;
_N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll._, 2d ser., iii. 303.) Mr. Lenox also, still
earlier, privately printed at Albany in 1855, after the original,
“déposé parmi les papiers du Bureau des Biens des Jésuites à Québec,”
Dreuillettes’ _Narré du Voyage_ (60 copies), as copied by Dr. Shea.
Cf. Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 713; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, iii. 34;
xi. 152; Hutchinson’s _Massachusetts Bay_, i. 166; his _Collection
of Papers_, p. 166; _Plymouth Colonial Records_, ix. 199; Parkman’s
_Jesuits_, pp. 324, 330, and his references; Shea’s _Charlevoix_, i.
228, and ii. 214; Hazard’s _Collection_, ii. 183, 184; and _N. Y. Col.
Doc._, ix. 6. The letter of the Council of Quebec and the commission
given to the envoys sent to Boston, are also in _Massachusetts
Archives; Documents Collected in France_, ii. 67, 69, where will also
be found (iii. 21) a letter, dated Quebec, April 8, 1681, on the life
and death of Druillettes.
=1648-1649.=—PAUL RAGUENEAU. _Relation ... ès années 1648 et 1649._
Paris, 1650. Pages 8, 103. There was a second issue, with larger
vignette on title, and some additional pages to the Huron report, pp.
4, 114, 2.
[Illustration]
CONTENTS: Text signed by J. H. Chaumonot; the Huron mission; chaps. 4
and 5 give biographies of Brebeuf and Gabriel Lalemant, killed by the
Iroquois.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,278; Harrisse, nos. 90, 91; Carter-Brown,
vol. ii. nos. 695, 696; Lenox, p. 7; O’Callaghan, no. 1,228; Dufossé,
1880 (180 francs). Harrassowitz, 1883 (160 marks). The second issue
was recently priced in New York at $60.
COPIES: =CB.= (both editions), =GB.= (first), =J.= (first), =K.=
(second), =L.= (both), =M.= (first), =OHM.= (both).
=1648-1649.=—RAGUENEAU. _Relation_, etc.... Lille, 1650. Pages 121, 3.
Follows the first Paris edition, but is of smaller size.
REFERENCES: Harrisse, no. 92; Lenox, p. 7.
COPIES: =HC.=, =L.=
=1648-1649.=—RAGUENEAU. _Narratio Historica_ ... Œniponti, 1650. Pages
24, 232, 3. A Latin translation by G. Gobat, somewhat abridged, and
differently divided into chapters; smaller than the preceding edition.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,316; Harrisse, no. 93; Ternaux, no. 703;
Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 690; Lenox, p. 7; O’Callaghan, no. 1,227.
Rich, 1832 (15 shillings).
COPIES: =CB.=, =HC.=, =L.=
Further accounts of the martyrdom of Brebeuf and Lalemant will be found
in most of the works mentioned under 1647, in connection with Jogues.
Cf. also the _Mercure de France_, 1649, pp. 997-1,008; _Catholic
World_, xiii. 512, 623; Le Père Martin’s _Le P. Jean de Brebeuf, sa
vie, ses travaux, son Martyre_, Paris, 1877; Harrisse, p. 88; Shea’s
_Charlevoix_, ii. 221, where is an engraving of a silver portrait bust
of Brebeuf, sent by his relatives from Paris to enclose his skull (cf.
Parkman’s _Jesuits_, p. 389), which is still preserved at Quebec. The
accompanying engraving is made from a photograph kindly lent by Mr.
Parkman. There are other engravings in Shea’s _Catholic Mission_, in
his _Charlevoix_, ii. 221; and in the _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, ii. 171.
[Illustration]
=1649-1650.=—RAGUENEAU. _Relation ... depuis l’Esté de la année
1649 jusques à l’Esté de l’année 1650._ Paris, 1651. Pages 4, 178
(marked 187), 2. Page 171 has tailpiece of fruits. A second issue has
typographical variations, with no tailpiece on p. 171, and on p. 178 a
letter from the “Supérieure de l’Hospital de la Miséricorde de Kebec.”
CONTENTS: Ragueneau’s letter begins p. 1; Lalemant’s, p. 172; Letters
of Buteux and De Lyonne; Huron Mission; Murders of Garnier and Noel
Chabanel; Iroquois defeat of the Hurons, and a remnant of the latter
colonized near Quebec.
REFERENCES: Carayon, nos. 1,279, 1,280; Harrisse, nos. 95, 96;
Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 719; Lenox, p. 8; Brinley, p. 139;
Harrassowitz, 1883 (250 marks).
COPIES: =CB.=, =GB.=, =HC.= (first edition), =K.=, =L.= (both), =M.=,
=NY.=
Shea, _Charlevoix_, ii. 231, and Parkman, _Jesuits_, pp. 101, 406,
407, give references for Garnier. Cf. Bressani, _Breve Relatione_, and
Martin’s translation of Bressani, for a table of thirty Jesuit and
Recollect missionaries among the Hurons. Margry’s _Découvertes_, etc.,
Part I., is on “Les Récollets dans le pays des Hurons, 1646-1687.”
Parkman, _Jesuits_, pp. 402, 430, saying that this Relation is the
principal authority for the retreat of the Hurons to Isle St. Joseph,
etc., gives other references.
=1650-1651.=—RAGUENEAU. _Relation ... ès années 1650 et 1651._ Paris,
1652. Pages 4, 146, 1.
CONTENTS: French Settlements and the Missions. A letter signed Martin
Lyonne begins p. 139.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,281; Harrisse, no. 97; Carter-Brown, vol.
ii. no. 740; Lenox, p. 8; O’Callaghan, no. 1,229; Harrassowitz, 1883
(120 marks).
COPIES: =CB.=, =GB.=, =HC.=, =K.=, =L.=, =M.=, =NY.=
=1651-1652.=—RAGUENEAU. _Relation ... depuis l’été de l’année 1651
jusques à l’été de l’année 1652._ Paris, 1653. Pages 8, 200.
CONTENTS: Chap. i. gives an account of the death of Buteux; Chap. ix.,
War with the Iroquois; Chap. x., Biography of La Mère Marie de Saint
Joseph.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,282; Harrisse, no. 98; Carter-Brown, vol.
ii. no. 756; Lenox, p. 8; O’Callaghan, no. 1,231; Harrassowitz, 1883
(120 marks).
COPIES: =CB.=, =HC.=, (two copies), =K.=, _L._, _V._
The account of the Réligieuses Ursulines of Canada in this Relation was
repeated, with additions, in pp. 229-315 of _La Gloire de S. Ursule_,
Valenciennes, 1656. Cf. Harrisse, p. 106; Lenox, p. 8; also _Les
Ursulines de Québec_, and Saint Foi’s _Premières Ursulines de France_.
[Illustration]
An account of the missions “in Canada sive Nova Francia” is the
first section of the _Progressus fidei Catholicæ in novo orbe_,
published at Coloniæ Agrippinæ, 1653. The book is very rare; the only
copy noted is in the Carter-Brown Collection, vol. ii. no. 758. The
_Lenox Contribution_, p. 8., says there was a copy in O’Callaghan’s
Collection, but I fail to find it in his sale catalogue; cf. Harrisse,
p. 99.
=1652-1653.=—FRANÇOIS LEMERCIER. _Relation ... depuis l’été de l’année
1652 jusques à l’été de l’année 1653._ Paris, 1654. Pages 4, 184, 4.
CONTENTS: Montreal; Three Rivers; Poncet captured by the Mohawks; Fort
Orange; Peace with the Iroquois.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,283; Harrisse, no. 101; Sabin, vol. x. no.
39,992; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 775; Lenox, p. 8; O’Callaghan, no.
1,233; Harrassowitz, 1883 (120 marks).
COPIES: =CB.=, =HC.=, =K.=, =L.=, =M.=, =OHM.=
Montreal was organized as a colony in 1653. Cf. Faillon, vol. ii. chap.
10.
=1653-1654.=—LEMERCIER. _Relation ... ès années 1653 et 1654._ Paris,
1655. Pages 4, 176.
CONTENTS: Negotiations with the Five Nations; Le Moyne at Onondaga;
Treaty of Peace, and Discovery of Salt Springs; Letter from the Hurons
at the Isle d’Orléans with a translation.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,284; Harrisse, no. 103; Sabin, vol. x. no.
39,993; Lenox, p. 8; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 799; O’Callaghan, no.
1,234; Harrassowitz, 1883 (120 marks); _Doc. Hist. N. Y._, i. 33
COPIES: =CB.=, =F.=, =HC.=, =J.=, =K.=, =L.=, =M.=, =OHM.=, _NY._.
Cf. L. P. Tarcotte’s _Histoire de l’ile Orléans_, Quebec, 1867, and N.
H. Bowen’s _Isle of Orleans, 1860_.
=1655.=—_Copie de deux Lettres envoiées de la Nouvelle France._ Paris,
1656. Pages 28. The bearer of the Relation of this year was robbed in
France, and only these two letters were recovered and printed. It, with
the _Relation_ of 1660, is the rarest of the series.
REFERENCES: Harrisse, nos. 108, 425; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 813;
Lenox, p. 9; O’Callaghan, no. 1,974.
COPIES: Those in =L.= and in the Ste. Geneviève at Paris are the only
ones known.
Mr. Lenox printed a fac-simile edition from his own copy, with double
titles, showing variations; and of this there are copies in =CB.=,
=HC.=, etc.
=1655-1656.=—JEAN DE QUENS. _Relation ... ès Années 1655 et 1656._
Paris, 1657. Pages 6, 168.
CONTENTS: A Letter signed by De Quens; Le Moyne among the Mohawks; The
French at Onondaga; War between the Five Nations and Eries; Ottawas at
Quebec; Murder of Garreau.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,285; Harrisse, no. 109; Carter-Brown, vol.
ii. no. 826; Lenox, p. 9; O’Callaghan, no. 1,237.
COPIES: =CB.=, =GB.=, =HC.=, =L.=, =M.=
Cf. Tailhan, _Mémoires sur Perrot_, p. 229; and the references in
Shea’s _Charlevoix_, vol. ii. Parkman says Perrot is in large part
incorporated in La Potherie; cf. _Historical Magazine_, ix. 205.
=1656-1657.=—=Le Jeune.= _Relation ... ès années mil six cents
cinquante six et mil six cens cinquante sept._ Paris, 1658. Pages 12,
211.
CONTENTS: Begins with a Letter signed by Le Jeune; The Senecas and
the French; Mission to the Cayugas; Dupuis and the Jesuits among the
Onondagas; Le Moyne among the Mohawks; Customs of the Five Nations;
Chap. xxi. has a Letter signed by Le Mercier.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,280; Harrisse, no. 110; Sabin, vol. x. no.
39,957; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 839; Lenox, p. 9; O’Callaghan, no.
1,238; Harrassowitz, 1883 (125 marks). Recently priced at $60.
COPIES: =CB.=, =GB.=, =HC.=, =K.=, =L.=, =NY.=
[Illustration]
=1657-1658.=—RAGUENEAU. _Relation ... ès années 1657 et 1658._ Paris,
1659. Pages 8, 136. Martin holds that this volume was made up in Paris.
CONTENTS: Two Letters from Ragueneau; French Settlements at Onondaga
abandoned; Journal, 1655-1658, dated New Holland, March 25, 1658, and
signed Simon Le Moine; Routes to Hudson’s Bay; Comparison of savage
and European Customs.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,287; Harrisse, no. 112; Carter-Brown, vol.
ii. no. 859; Lenox, p. 9.
COPIES: =CB.=, =L.=, =M.=, =NY.=
On the French missions in New York, see Marie de l’Incarnation,
_Lettres historiques_; Parkman’s _Old Régime_, chap. i.; O’Callaghan’s
_New Netherland;_ Shea’s _Charlevoix_, vol. iii.; J. V. H. Clark’s
_Onondaga_ (Syracuse, 1849); Charles Hawley’s _Early Chapters of
Cayuga History, with the Jesuit Missions in Goi-o-gouen_, 1656-1684
(Auburn, 1879), with an Introduction by Dr. Shea. This last book has
a map of the Iroquois territory and the mission sites, by J. S. Clark
(reproduced on an earlier page).
=1659.=—LALLEMANT. _Lettres envoiées de la Nouvelle France._ Paris,
1660. Pages 49, 3.
CONTENTS: Arrival of a Bishop; Algonquin and Huron Missions; Acadia
Mission. The three letters are dated, respectively, Sept. 12, Oct. 10,
Oct. 16, 1659.
REFERENCES: Harrisse, no. 113; Sabin, vol. x. no. 38,683; Lenox, p. 9;
O’Callaghan, no. 1,236.
COPIES: From what was supposed to be a unique copy (since burned
in 1854), in the Parliamentary Library at Quebec, Mr. Lenox had
a fac-simile made, from which he afterward printed, in 1854, his
fac-simile edition; but Harrisse has since reported two copies in the
Bibliothèque Nationale, at Paris. Harrassowitz, in his _Rarissima
Americana_, no. 91, p. 5, notes a copy at 2,500 marks, which is now in
Mr. Kalbfleisch’s Collection.
[Illustration]
De Laval landed at Quebec June 6, 1659, having been made Bishop of
Petra and Vicar Apostolic of New France the previous year. He became
Bishop of Quebec in 1674; resigned in 1688, and died in 1708. Parkman
draws a distinct picture of his character in his _Old Régime_, chap.
v., and describes his appearance from several portraits which are
extant, one of which is engraved in Shea’s _Le Clercq_, ii. p. 50.
A Life of him, by La Tour, was printed at Cologne in 1761; and an
_Esquisse de la vie_, etc., at Quebec, in 1845. Two other publications
are of interest: _Notice sur la fête à Quebec le 16 Juin, 1859, 200eme
anniversaire de l’arrivée de Laval_, Quebec, 1859, and _Translation
des Restes de Laval_, Quebec, 1878. Cf. Faillon, _Hist. de la Colonie
Française_, ii. chap. 13, and Shea’s _Charlevoix_, iii. 20, for
references. In 1874 the second centennial of Laval’s becoming bishop
was commemorated in a _Notice biographique_, by E. Langevin, “suivie
de quarante-une lettres et notes historiques sur le Chapitre de la
Cathédrale,” published at Montreal, 1874.
[Illustration]
The Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame were founded this year
at Montreal, and the life of the foundress, Margaret Bourgeois, by
Montgolfier, was published in Montreal in 1818; and was translated and
published in English in New York in 1880. Another Life, said to be by
the Abbé Faillon, was published in 1853. An earlier Life, by Ransonet,
was published at Liege in 1728. Cf. Parkman’s _Jesuits_, p. 201, and
Shea’s _Charlevoix_, vol. v., for her portrait.
The Abbé de Queylus, who was the candidate of the Sulpitians for the
Bishopric, came over in 1657. (Faillon, ii. 271; La Tour, _Vie de
Laval_, 19; Shea’s _Charlevoix_, iii. 20; Parkman, _Old Régime_, 97.)
=1659-1660.=—(Not signed.) _Relation ... ès années mil six cent
cinquante neuf et mil six cent soixante._ Paris, 1661. Pages 6, 202;
paging irregular in parts.
CONTENTS: Letter from Menard; Country of the Five Nations, with Census
of the Tribes; Saguenay River; Hudson’s Bay; Overthrow of the Hurons.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,288; Harrisse, no. 115: Carter-Brown, vol.
ii. no. 895; Lenox, p. 9; O’Callaghan, no. 1,239.
COPIES: =CB.=, =F.=, =GB.=, =HC.=, =L.=, =M.=, =NY.=
For the dispersal of the Hurons, see Martin’s Bressani, App. p. 309;
cf. Parkman’s _Jesuits_.
For the part relating to traders on Lake Superior in 1658, see
translation, in Smith’s _Wisconsin_, iii. 20; cf. Margry, i. 53.
Menard’s letter, Aug. 27, 1660, on the eve of his embarkation for Lake
Superior, is translated in Minnesota Historical Society’s _Annals_, i.
20; and _Collections_, i. 135.
[Illustration]
=1660-1661.=—LE JEUNE. _Relation ... ès années 1660 et 1661._ Paris,
1662. Pages 8, 213, 3.
CONTENTS: Le Jeune’s Epistle to the King; War with the Iroquois; Peace
with the Five Nations; Mission to Hudson’s Bay; “Journal du premier
Voyage fait vers la Mer du Nort,” begins on page 62; Letters of Le
Moyne from the Mohawk Country, and from a French Prisoner among the
Mohawks.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,289; Harrisse, no. 117; Carter-Brown, vol.
ii. no. 907; Lenox, p. 10; O’Callaghan, no. 1,240; Harrassowitz, 1882
(125 marks). Recently priced in New York at $50.
COPIES: =CB.=, =HC.=, =K.=, =L.=, =NY.=, =V.=
[Illustration
RELATION
DE CE QVI S’EST PASSE
DE PLVS REMARQVABLE
AVX MISSIONS DES PERES
De la Compagnie de Iesvs
EN LA
NOVVELLE FRANCE
és années 1662. & 1663.
_Envoyée au R. P. André Castillon, Provincial de la Province de
France._
A PARIS,
Chez SEBASTIEN CRAMOISY, Et SEBAST.
MABRE-CRAMOISY, Imprimeurs ordinaires du Roy & de la Reine, rue S.
Iacques, aux Cicognes.
M. DC. LXIV.
_AVEC PRIVILEGE DV ROY_]
=1661-1662.=—LALLEMANT. _Relation ... ès années 1661 et 1662._ Paris,
1663. Pages 8, 118, 1.
[Illustration]
CONTENTS: Letter dated Kebec, Sept. 18, 1662, signed Hierosme
Lalemant; Disputes with two of the Five Nations; Murder of Vignal; Le
Moyne among the Senecas.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,290; Harrisse, no. 119; Carter-Brown, vol.
ii. no. 929; Lenox, p. 10; O’Callaghan, no. 1,241; Quaritch, no.
12,365 (£8 10_s_.); Harrassowitz, 1882 (150 marks).
COPIES: =CB.=, =HC.=, =J.=, =K.=, =L.=
Cf. Shea’s _Charlevoix_, iii. 45, note.
=1662-1663.=—LALLEMANT. _Relation ... ès années 1662 et 1663._ Paris,
1664. Pages 16, 169, with some irregularity of paging.
CONTENTS: Meteorological Phenomena: Earthquake of 1663 [see Harrisse,
p. 118] and Solar Eclipse, Sept. 1, 1663; War with the Iroquois;
Outaouaks; Death of Menard.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,291; Harrisse, no. 121; Sabin, vol. x. no.
38,688; Lenox, p. 10; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 950; O’Callaghan,
no. 1,242; Dufossé, no. 5,602 (180 francs); Harrassowitz, 1882 (120
marks). Recently priced in New York at $50.
COPIES: =CB.=, =HC.=, =K.=, =L.=, =M.=, =NY.=
Cf. Shea’s _Charlevoix_, iii. 48, 57.
Menard had established a mission at St. Theresa Bay, Lake Superior,
in 1661. Cf. Smith’s _Wisconsin_, vol. iii., for a translation;
cf. further, on Menard, Perrot’s _Mœurs des Sauvages; Historical
Magazine_, viii. 175, by Dr. Shea, and his edition of _Charlevoix_,
i. 49; _Minnesota Hist. Soc. Coll._, by E. D. Neill, i. 135. Cf. J.
G. Shea on the “Indian Tribes of Wisconsin,” in the _Wisconsin Hist.
Coll._, iii. 125; and a criticism by Alfred Brunson in vol. iv. p. 227.
=1663-1664.=—LALLEMANT. _Relation ... ès années 1663 et 1664._ Paris,
1665. Pages 8, 176, with some irregularities of paging.
CONTENTS: Missions among the Hurons, Algonquins, and Five Nations; War
of the Mohawks; Iroquois Embassy to the French.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,292; Harrisse, no. 123; Sabin, vol. x. no.
38,689; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 964; Lenox, p. 10.
COPIES: =CB.=, =HC.=, =L.=, =M.=, =NY.=
=1664-1665.=—LEMERCIER. _Relation ... ès années 1664 et 1665._ Paris,
1666. Pages 12, 128.
CONTENTS: M. de Tracy’s Voyage; Strength of the Five Nations;
Comets; Vignal’s Death; Nouvel among the Savages. What is called a
second issue has in addition a “Lettre de la R. Mère Supérieure des
Réligieuses Hospitalières de Kebec du 23 Octobre, 1665,” 16 pp., which
is not reprinted in the Quebec edition of the _Relations_. A map of
Lakes Ontario, Champlain, and adjacent parts, with plans of the forts
on the Richelieu River. A part of the map and plans of the forts are
given herewith. Martin assigns these plans to the following _Relation_.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,293; Harrisse, nos. 124, 133; Sabin,
vol. x. no. 39,994; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no 978; Lenox, p. 10;
O’Callaghan, no. 1,243; Dufossé, no. 2,175 (200 francs).
COPIES: =CB.=, =HC.=, =L.= (both issues), =M.=, =OHM.=, =NY.=
[Illustration]
=1665-1666=.—LEMERCIER. _Relation ... aux années mil six cent soixante
cinq et mil six cent soixante six._ Paris, 1667. Pages viii, 47, 16.
CONTENTS: Courcelles’ Expedition, January, 1666, against the Oneidas
and Mohawks; De Tracy’s Interview with Garacontie, and his Expedition,
September, 1666, against the Mohawks.
[Illustration]
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,294; Harrisse, no. 126; Sabin, vol. x. no.
39,995; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 992: Lenox, p. 10; Harrassowitz,
1882 (150 marks).
COPIES: =CB.=, without the “Lettre.” =K.=, with the “Lettre.”
[Illustration]
Harrisse says the copies in the Bibliothèque Nationale and the Ste.
Geneviève Libraries in Paris contain also a “Lettre de la Révérende
Mère Supérieure des Réligieuses Hospitalières de Kebec, du 3 Octobre,
1666,” 16 pp., which is called for in the contents-tables of copies in
which it fails, and it is not included in the Quebec edition of the
_Relations. Historical Magazine_, iii. 20.
[Illustration]
=1666-1667=.—LEMERCIER. _Relation ... les années mil six cens soixante
six et mil six cens soixante sept._ Paris, 1668. Pages 8, 160, 14. The
title is without the usual vignette of storks.
[Illustration: THE FORTS.
A section in fac-simile of the map in the _Relation_ of 1662-63,
showing the position of the forts. These may be compared with the
_Carte dressée pour la Campagne de 1666_, accompanied by plans of forts
Richelieu, St. Louis, and Ste. Thérèse, which Talon sent with his
despatch of Nov. 11, 1665, and which is engraved in Faillon, _Histoire
de la Colonie Française en Canada_, iii. 125, where will also be found
a map to illustrate the campaign of 1666.]
CONTENTS: Allouez’ Journal to Lake Superior; The Pottawatomies and
other Western Tribes; Missions to the Five Nations; Thomas Morel’s
Account of the Wonders in the Church of St. Anne du Petit Cap. A
second issue has appended, a “Lettre de la Révérende Mère Supérieure
des Réligieuses Hospitalières de Kebec du 20 Octobre, 1667,” 14 pp.,
which is omitted in the Quebec edition of the _Relations_.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,295; Harrisse, no. 127; Sabin, vol. x. no.
39,996; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,011; Lenox, p. 11; Harrassowitz,
1882, without the “Lettre” (100 marks).
COPIES: =CB.= (2d issue), =HC.= (2d issue), =J.=, =K.= (1st issue), L.
(both), =M.=, =NY.= (1st issue), =V.=
A translation of Allouez’ journal is in Smith’s _Wisconsin_, vol.
iii.; cf. Shea’s _Charlevoix_, iii. 101, and his _Discovery of the
Mississippi_, and _Catholic Missions_; Margry’s _Découvertes_, i. 57.
For the early missions in the far West, see _Wisconsin Hist. Soc.
Coll_., vol. iii.; E. M. Sheldon’s _Early History of Michigan_;
Lanman’s _Michigan_; James W. Taylor’s History of Ohio. Cf. Field’s
_Indian Bibliography_, nos. 856, 1,398, 1,535, 1,688.
[Illustration]
It has been claimed that Archbishop Fénelon (b. 1651) may have been a
missionary among the Iroquois from 1667 to 1674; cf. Robert Greenough
in _N. Y. Hist. Soc. Proc_., 1848, p. 109; 1849, p. 11. A half-brother
of Fénelon is known to have been in Montreal; cf. Abbé Verreau on “Les
deux Abbés de Fénelon,” in the Canadian _Journal de l’Instruction
publique_, vol. viii.; Parkman’s _Frontenac_, pp. 33, 43. The evidence
fails to establish the proof of the Archbishop’s presence here. Cf. _N.
E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg_. xvi. p. 344, and xvii. p. 246.
[Illustration: TRACY’S CAMPAIGN, 1666.
This sketch follows the principal part of a manuscript map in Mr.
Parkman’s collection (No. 6) in Harvard College Library. It is called
_Carte des grands lacs Ontario et Autres, et des costes de la Nouvelle
Angleterre et des pays traversés par M^{rs}. de Tracy et Courcelles
pour aller attaquer les Agnez_, 1666. Key:—
1. Saguenay.
2. Tadoussac.
3. Quebec.
4. R. du Sault de la Chaudiere.
5. R. des Etchemins.
6. Les 3 Rivières.
7. Fort de Richelieu.
8. R. St. François.
9. Fort de St. Louis.
10. Montreal.
11. Lac de St. Louis.
12. Lac des deux Montagnes.
13. Rivière par ou viennent les Outaouacs.
14. Lac St. François.
15. Sault.
16. Rapides.
17. Otondiala.
18. Ochouagen R.
19. Commencement du lac Champlain, ou est le fort S^a Anne du quel M.
de Tracy escrit et est party le 4^{eme} Octobre, 1666.
20. Lac du St. Sacrement.
21. Habitations Iroquoises que les troupes du Roy doivent attaquer.
Trois villages des Agniez Iroquois.
22. Petit village hollandais.
23. Orange Midy.
The _Catalogue_ of the Library of Parliament, 1858, p. 1614, gives a
map, probably this one, as copied from the original in the archives at
Paris.
Cf. on this campaign, Parkman’s _Old Régime_, p. 186. Harrisse, no.
125, following Faribault, no. 808, cites a _Journal de la Marche du
Marquis de Tracy contre les Iroquois_, Paris, 1667, as an account of
the third expedition against the Iroquois, of which Tracy took the
command, Sept.-Nov., 1666, in person,—the earlier expeditions having
been unsuccessful. Cf. documents in Margry, i. 169; Charlevoix, liv.
ix., and Brodhead, vols. i. and ix. Cf. Colden’s _Five Nations_, and
authorities enumerated by Shea in his _Charlevoix_, iii. 89, etc.]
=1667-1668.=—LEMERCIER. _Relation ... aux années mil six cens
soixante-sept, et mil six cens soixante-huit._ Paris, 1669. Pages 8,
219. Has the stork vignette of the Cramoisy press on the title, and it
is the last _Relation_ in which that sign is used.
CONTENTS: The several Missions; Drowning of Arent van Curler; Letter
of De Petrée, Bishop of Quebec; Death of the Mère Cathérine de St.
Augustin.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,296; Harrisse, no. 128; Sabin, vol. x. no.
39,997; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,029; Lenox, p. 11.
COPIES: =CB.=, =HC.= (2 copies) =L.=, =M.=, =OHM.=, =NY.=
Père Paul Ragueneau’s _La Vie de la Mère Cathérine de St. Augustin_,
was published at Paris in 1671. Cf. Harrisse, no. 133; Carter-Brown,
vol. ii. no. 1,069; Leclerc, 1878 (500 francs). There was an Italian
translation printed at Naples in 1752.
=1668-1669.=—(No author.) _Relation ... les années 1668 et 1669._
Paris, 1670. Pages 2, 150 (last page 140 by error). The title vignette
is a vase of flowers.
[Illustration: THE JESUIT MAP OF LAKE SUPERIOR.]
CONTENTS: Missions among the Five Nations; Letter from Governor
Lovelace, “Gouverneur de Manhate,” from Fort James (New York), Nov.
18, 1668, to Father Pierron, on the sale of ardent spirits to the
Indians.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,297; Harrisse, nos. 129, 530; Carter-Brown,
vol. ii. no. 1,049; Lenox, p. 11; O’Callaghan, no. 1,244.
COPIES: =CB.=, =HC.=, =L.=, =M.=, =OHM.=, =NY.=
The question of selling liquor to the Indians was one of large
political bearing at times. Cf. Faillon, iii. chap. 21.
=1669-1670.=—LEMERCIER. _Relation ... les années 1669 et 1670._ Paris,
1671. Pages 10, 3-318. Part i. pp. 3-108, in larger type than part ii.
pp. 111-318.
CONTENTS: Missions to the Five Nations; The Iroquois and Algonquin
Difficulties; The Mohawk and Mohegan War, 1669; The Père d’Ablon’s
“Relation des Missions aux Ovtaovaks;” A chapter on the Dutch begins
p. 145; Lake Superior and the Copper Mines; Letter from Jacques
Marquette on the Western Tribes.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,298; Harrisse, no. 135; Sabin, vol. x. no.
39,998; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,070; Lenox, p. 11; O’Callaghan,
no. 1,245; Dufossé, no. 2,176 (200 francs).
Copies: =CB.=, =F.=, =HC.=, =L.=, =M.=, =NY.=, =V.=
[Illustration]
Translations of portions on Western explorations are in Smith’s
_Wisconsin_, vol. iii.
=1670-1671.=—CLAUDE D’ABLON. _Relation ... les années 1670 et 1671._.
Paris, 1672. Pages 16, 189, 1, with errors of paging. The title
vignette is a basket of fruit.
CONTENTS: The Missions; The Western Country occupied by the French,
and the Country described; the Mississippi River described from the
Reports of the Indians.
[Illustration]
It has a folding map of Lake Superior (a fac-simile of it is annexed),
of which, says Parkman (_La Salle_, pp. 30, 450), “the exactness
has been exaggerated as compared with other Canadian maps of the
day.” Bancroft (UNITED STATES, original edition, iii. 152) gives a
reproduction of it. Others are in Whitney’s GEOLOGICAL REPORT OF LAKE
SUPERIOR, and in Monette’s MISSISSIPPI. vol. i. Harrisse (no. 201)
notes a map of Lake Superior, dated 1671, and preserved in Paris.
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,290; Harrisse, no. 138; Carter-Brown,
vol. ii. no. 1,084; Lenox, p. 11; Dufossé, no. 2,177 (200 francs);
Harrassowitz, 1882 (110 marks).
COPIES: =CB.=, =HC.=, =K.= (without map), =L.=, =M.=, =NY.=
Cf. the “Relation de l’Abbé Gallinée” in Margry, _Découvertes_,
etc., part i. p. 112, and separately with the Abbé Verreau’s notes,
Montreal, 1875. St. Lusson’s ceremony in taking possession of the
country on the Lakes is noted in _Ibid._ i. 96.
[Illustration: MADAME DE LA PELTRIE.
Copied from a photograph owned by Mr. Parkman of a painting of which
there is an engraving in _Les Ursulines de Quebec_, i. 348.]
=1671-1672.=—D’ABLON. _Relation ... les années 1671 et 1672._ Paris,
1673. Pages 16, 264.
CONTENTS: Arrival of Frontenac; Huron and Iroquois, Lower Algonquin,
and Hudson’s Bay Missions; Overland Journey from the Saguenay. On page
207 begins “La Sainte Mort de Madame de la Peltrie.”
REFERENCES: Carayon, no. 1,300; Harrisse, nos. 139, 340; Carter-Brown,
vol. ii. no. 1,097; Lenox, p. 12; O’Callaghan, no. 1,246;
Harrassowitz, 1882 (150 marks.)
COPIES: =CB.=, =HC.= (without map), =K.=, =L.=, =M.=, =NY.=, =V.=
Harrisse says the two copies in the Bibliothèque Nationale have the
same map as the preceding _Relation_. O’Callaghan says all copies
ought to have it. Lenox says the map in this edition is sometimes, but
rarely, found with variations, the position of some of the missions
being changed, and new stations added on the plate.
Parkman (_La Salle_, p. 29) speaks of the change now taking place in
the character of the _Relations_, which are still “for the edification
of the pious reader, filled with intolerably tedious stories of
baptisms, conversions, and the exemplary deportments of neophytes;
but they are relieved abundantly by more mundane subjects,— ...
observations on the winds, currents, and tides of the Great Lakes,
speculations on a subterranean outlet of Lake Superior, accounts of its
copper mines,”[690] etc.
A _Life of Madame de la Peltrie_ (Magdalen de Chauvigny), by Mother St.
Thomas, was published in New York in 1859.
A companion of Madame de la Peltrie was commemorated in _La Vie de
la Vénérable Mère Marie de l’Incarnation, première Supérieure des
Ursulines_ (Paris, 1677), by her son, Claude Martin. She was in Canada
from 1639 to 1672. (Harrisse, no. 143; Lenox, pp. 13, 14; Dufossé, no.
6,763, 125 francs.) In 1681 a series of _Lettres de la Vénérable Mère
Marie de l’Incarnation_ was printed, and they cover many historical
incidents. (Harrisse, no. 148; Dufossé, no. 3,166, 110 francs.) A
selection of them was published at Clermont Ferrand in 1837. Charlevoix
published a Life of her in 1724; and in 1864 one by Casgrain was
printed in Quebec, and in English at Cork in 1880. In 1873 the French
text was included in _Œuvres de l’Abbé Casgrain_, tome i. Another by
the Abbé Richardeau was printed at Tournai in 1873. There is a likeness
of her in _Les Ursulines de Québec depuis leur Etablissement jusqu’a
nos jours_. A. M. D. G. Quebec, 1863. 4 vols. Shea (_Charlevoix_,
i. 82; ii. 101; iii. 184) enumerates other authorities: Juchereau,
_Histoire de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Québec_. Another History of the
Hôtel-Dieu, by Casgrain, was published in 1878. An account of steps to
procure her canonization is in the _Catholic World_ (New York), August,
1878. Cf. Parkman’s _Jesuits_, 174, 177, 199, 206.
[The contemporary printing of these Relations stopped with this for
1671-1672. The series in continuation has since been printed in
various forms, as follows.]
=1672-1679.=—_Mission du Canada; Relations inédites de la Nouvelle
France_ (1672-1679), Paris, Ch. Douniol, 1861. 2 vols.; 2 maps, one of
them a fac-simile of Marquette’s map. [These volumes are vols. iii. and
iv. of _Voyages et Travaux des Missionaires de la Compagnie de Jésus_.]
Cf. Field. _Indian Bibliography_, p. 276; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no.
1,085, 1,198; Lenox, p. 14; O’Callaghan, no. 1,252.
=1673-1679.=—CLAUDE DABLON. _Relation de ce qui s’est passé de
plus remarquable aux Missions des Pères de la Compagnie de Jésus en
la Nouvelle France les années 1673 à 1679. A la Nouvelle York. De
la Presse Cramoisy de Jean-Marie Shea_, 1860. Pages 13, 290, with
Marquette’s map.
Martin describes the original manuscript (147 pages, pp. 109-118
wanting) preserved at Quebec as being divided into eight chapters. It
has an account of the heroic death of Marquette. Cf. Field’s _Indian
Bibliography_, no. 396; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,197; Lenox, p. 16.
Some misrepresentations having been made regarding the Cramoisy series
of Dr. Shea, it is fair to say that the expense of the whole series
was borne by himself alone. There are enumerations of the volumes in
Field’s _Indian Bibliography_, the _Menzies Catalogue_, no. 1,811, and
in the Brinley _Catalogue_, no. 146, etc.
=1672-1673.=—DABLON. _Relation_, etc. New York, 1861.
This concerns the missions to the Hurons near Quebec, to the Iroquois,
and beyond the Great Lakes. It is also printed in the _Mission du
Canada_, vol. i. Cf. Harrisse, nos. 597, 605; Carter-Brown, vol. ii.
no. 1,098; Field, no. 1,070; Lenox, p. 17.
=1673-1674.=—DABLON. _Relation_, etc. In the _Mission du Canada_; and
an English translation is in the _Historical Magazine_, v. 237.
=1673-1675.= _Récit des Voyages et des Découvertes du R. Père Jacques
Marquette, de la Compagnie de Jésus, en l’année 1673 et aux suivantes:
La Continuation de ses Voyages par le R. P. Claude Allouez, et Le
Journal autographe du P. Marquette en 1674 et 1675. Avec la Carte de
son Voyage tracée de sa main._
Printed for Mr. Lenox after the original manuscript preserved in
the Collége Ste. Marie at Montreal. Cf. O’Callaghan, no. 1,246a;
Carter-Brown, ii. 1,126; Lenox, p. 12.
=1675.=—“État présent des missions pendant l’année 1675,” in the
_Mission du Canada_, vol. ii.
=1676-1677.=—_Relation ... ès années 1676 et 1677. Imprimée pour la
première fois, selon la copie du MS. original restant à l’Université
Laval, Québec._ [Albany, 1854.] Pages 2, 165.
CONTENTS: Missions among the Iroquois, Outaouacs, and at Tadousac.
This _Relation_ was printed for Mr. Lenox. Cf. Lenox, p. 13;
Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,172; O’Callaghan, nos. 1,247, 1,975.
=1677-1678.=—_Relation_, etc. This is printed in the _Mission du
Canada_, i. 193.
CONTENTS: Joliet’s account of his Journey with Marquette, and their
discovery of the Mississippi in 1673, as edited by Père Dablon, with
an account of a third journey to the Country of the Illinois, by
Claude Allouez.
An English version of Allouez’ journal is given in Shea’s _Mississippi
Valley_, p. 67, with a sketch of the missionary’s life. Cf. Margry’s
“Notice sur le Père Allouez, 1665-71,” in his _Découvertes_, etc., Part
I. p. 59. For Joliet and Marquette, see chap. vi.
=1684.=_—Copie d’une Lettre escrite par le Père Jacques Bigot, de la
Compagnie de Jésus, l’an 1684._ Manate [New York], 1858.
[Illustration]
The letter was written in behalf of the Abenakis of the St. Francis
de Sales mission, to accompany offerings to the tomb of their patron
saint at Annecy. The original letter is preserved in the Archives du
Monastère de la Visitation à Annecy. Cf. Harrisse, no. 725; Lenox, p.
17; O’Callaghan, no. 1,972; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,278.
=1684.=—JACQUES BIGOT. _Relation ... l’année 1684._ À Manate, 1857
(100 copies).
The Abenakis mission of St. Joseph de Sillery and the new mission
of St. Francis de Sales, and follows the original manuscript in
the Collége Ste. Marie. Cf. Harrisse, no. 726; Field, no. 130;
Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,277; Lenox, p. 15.
[Illustration]
=1685.=—BIGOT. _Relation ... l’année 1685._ À Manate, 1858.
The St. Joseph de Sillery and St. Francis de Sales missions, and
follows the original manuscript in the Collége Ste. Marie. Cf.
Harrisse, no. 727; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,307; Lenox, p. 15;
Field, no. 131.
=1688.=—JEAN DE ST. VALIER (Evêque de Québec). _Relation des Missions
de la Nouvelle France._ Paris, 1688.
REFERENCES: Harrisse, no. 159; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. nos. 1,366,
1,367; O’Callaghan, no. 2,218; Sunderland, no. 268; Lenox, pp. 12, 13.
COPIES: =CB.=, =HC.=, =L.=, etc.
This work has sometimes the following title instead: _Estat présent
de l’Eglise et de la Colonie Françoise dans la Nouvelle France._ De
St. Valier had succeeded De Laval, but before consecration visited the
country, and wrote this account of it.[691]
=1688.=—J. M. CHAUMONOT. _Vie, écrite par lui-même, 1688._ New York,
1858.
[Illustration]
One of Dr. Shea’s Cramoisy series. The original manuscript is preserved
in the Hôtel-Dieu, Quebec. It was followed by _Suite de la vie de P. M.
J. Chaumonot, par un père de la Compagnie_, believed by Dr. Shea to be
Rale. This was printed at New York in 1858, and continues the story to
1693. Cf. Carayon, _Le Père Chaumonot_; also, Harrisse, no. 753; Lenox,
p. 16; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. nos. 1,348, 1,349; Field, no. 288.
=1690-1691.=—PIERRE MILET. _Relation de sa Captivité parmi les
Onneiouts en 1690-91._ Nouvelle York, 1864.
Cf. Lenox, p. 17; Harrisse, no. 776; Field, p. 274. It follows a copy
found in Holland by Henry C. Murphy. See Vol. III. p. 415.
=1693-1694.=—JACQUES GRAVIER. _Relation ... depuis le Mois de Mars,
1693, jusqu’en Février, 1694._ À Manate, 1857.
[Illustration]
The mission of the Immaculate Conception among the Illinois. Cf. Lenox,
p. 15; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,466; Field, no. 622.
E. Carré, the minister of the French Church in Boston, printed in 1693,
with a preface by Cotton Mather, _Eschantillon de la doctrine que
les Jésuites enseignent aux Sauvages du nouveau monde_, drawn from a
manuscript found at Albany. Sabin, vol. iii. no. 11,040.
=1696-1702.=—_Relation des Affaires du Canada en 1696; avec des
lettres des Pères de la Compagnie de Jésus, depuis 1696 jusqu’en 1702._
Nouvelle York [Shea], 1865.
It was printed from copies of manuscripts preserved at Paris, made
for H. C. Murphy, and covers the war with the Iroquois, the Sault St.
Xavier, and other missions. A portion of it appeared without authority
the same year, as _Relation des affaires du Canada en 1696, et des
Missions des Pères de la Compagnie de Jésus jusqu’en 1702_. Cf. Field,
p. 325; Lenox, p. 17; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,489.
=1700.=—_Relation ou Journal du Voyage du R. P. Jacques Gravier en
1700, depuis le pays des Illinois jusqu’à l’Embouchure du Mississippi._
Nouvelle York, 1859.
Printed by Dr. Shea as one of his series, and translated by Shea in
his _Early Voyages up and down the Mississippi_ (Carter-Brown, vol.
ii. no. 1,604). Dr. Shea also printed in 1861 De Montigny de St. Cosme
and Thaumur de la Source’s _Relation de la Mission du Mississippi du
Séminaire de Québec en 1700_, giving an account of the attempt of the
Quebec Seminary to found missions on the lower Mississippi. Cf. Field,
no. 1,084; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,619. An English version is in
Shea’s _Early Voyages_, etc.
=1701.=—BIGOT. _Relation ... dans la mission des Abnaquis à l’Acadie,
1701._ Manate [Shea] 1858.
Cf. Field, p. 33; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,628. Shea also printed
_Relation_ (1702) in 1865.
=1717-1776.=—_Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, écrites des missions
étrangères._ 32 vols. in 34 parts.
REFERENCES: Carayon, p. 55; Field, no. 919; Brunet, p. 1028;
_Catalogue Library of Parliament_, 1858, p. 1192; Shea’s _Charlevoix_,
p. 88; Sabin, vol. x. pp. 294, 395; Muller, _Books on America_,
(1877), no. 3,680.
This serial contains various accounts supplementing the Jesuit
Relations: as under 1712, Father Marest’s voyage to Hudson’s Bay in
1694-1695 with D’Iberville; under 1722 and 1724, much about Rale, etc.
[Illustration]
As regards the date, 1717, for the beginning of this series, Dr. Shea
writes:—
“This date, though generally given, is, I am convinced, erroneous. The
first Recueil was approved by the Provincial in 1702, and obtained
the Royal license to print Aug. 23, 1702. The approval of vol. iii.
is dated in 1703. It is clear that vol. i. must have appeared in 1702
or 1703. I possess a translation of vol. i. in English: ‘Edifying and
Curious Letters of some Missioners, of the Society of Jesus, from
Foreign Missions. Printed in the Year 1707. 16º.’ Of course the French
preceded this translation.”
Brunet says it is not easy to find the series complete. A second
edition, Paris, 1780-1783, is in twenty-six volumes, but the prefaces
and dedications of the original volumes are not included. There
were other issues in 1819 and 1839. Stöcklein’s _Brief-Schriften_,
etc., 1726-1756, is in part a translation, with much else besides.
Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 390, and vol. iii. no. 994, where a Spanish
translation is noted.
CHAPTER VII.
FRONTENAC AND HIS TIMES.
BY GEORGE STEWART, JR., F.R.S.C.
COURCELLE was succeeded as governor of New France by a man of
remarkable individuality, energy, and purpose. Louis de Buade, Count of
Palluau and Frontenac, is beyond any doubt the most conspicuous figure
which the annals of early colonization in Canada reveal. He was the
descendant of several generations of distinguished men who were famous
as courtiers and soldiers. He was of Basque origin, and the blood of
nobles flowed in his veins. His grandfather was Antoine de Buade, a
favorite of Henri IV., and one who performed the delicate mission, in
1600, of carrying to Marie de Médicis the portrait of her royal lover.
He stood high in his sovereign’s estimation, was a counsellor of state
and chevalier of the noble order of the King, and the wearer of several
other titles of dignity and honor. By his wife, Jeanne Secontat, he
had several children, among whom was Henri de Buade, an officer of
the court of Louis XIII., who succeeded to the barony of Palluau, and
became colonel of a Navarre regiment. This Henri married, in 1613,
Anne Phélippeaux, the daughter of the Secretary of State. The future
governor of New France, the fruit of this union, was born in 1620.
The King acted as godfather to the babe, and bestowed on him his own
name. When the child had attained his fifteenth year he entered the
army, and was sent to Holland to fight under the Prince of Orange. Four
years later he was conspicuous among the volunteers at the stubborn
siege of Hesdin; and at the age of twenty he displayed great gallantry
during a sortie of the garrison at Arras. In 1641 he conducted himself
with equal bravery at the siege of Aire, and one year later, when
he was only twenty-two years of age, he took part in the struggles
before Callioure and Perpignan. He was colonel of his regiment at
twenty-three, and during the sharp campaign in Italy commanded in
several hard-contested battles and sieges. Through all this martial
career he was often wounded, and at Orbitello had an arm fractured.
He became a maréchal de camp (brigadier-general) in 1646, and shortly
after this the first part of his military career came to a close, and
he lived for a while in his father’s house in Paris.
In October, 1648, Frontenac espoused the young and beautiful Anne
de la Grange-Trianon, a maiden of imperious temper, lively wit, and
marvellous grace. She was one of the court beauties of the period,
the intimate friend and companion of Mademoiselle de Montpensier,
grand-daughter of Henri IV. Her portrait, painted as Minerva, now
adorns one of the galleries at Versailles. The marriage, which took
place at the church of St. Pierre aux Bœufs, in Paris, was contracted
without the knowledge of the bride’s parents. Some of Frontenac’s
relatives witnessed the ceremony; but the young Countess’s friends
were greatly chagrined when they were informed of the event, though
their anger did not last long, and a reconciliation soon followed. Not
many months had elapsed before the painful discovery was made that
the young couple were unsuited to each other. The bride conceived a
positive dislike of her husband; and very soon after her son[692] was
born she left his roof, and accepted Mademoiselle de Montpensier’s
friendly offer to join her suite. But the attachment between the two
high-spirited ladies did not continue long. They quarrelled, and the
fair Countess was dismissed from the court. The parting caused her
some real sorrow. Afterward, it is said, she intrigued to have her
husband sent out of the country. The Count had the ear of the King.
He was a fine courtier, polished in manner and chivalrous in spirit.
He was reputed to be one of the many lovers of the haughty beauty,
Madame Montespan, the favorite mistress of Louis XIV. He had, however,
a most ungovernable temper, and extravagance had left him a poor man.
In 1669 Turenne, the great soldier of Europe, selected him to conduct
a campaign against the Turks in Candia, where he displayed much of
his wonted courage and dash, but to small purpose, for the infidels
triumphed in the end. The prestige of Frontenac, however, remained
untarnished, and his reputation as a military leader increased. In 1672
the King further rewarded his fidelity by appointing him Governor and
Lieutenant-General of New France. Various stories have been told as
to the immediate cause of his appointment. Several chronicles affirm
that the King had detected his intimacy with Madame de Montespan, and
resolved at all hazards to get his dangerous rival out of the way.
Saint-Simon takes a different view of the situation, and says that
Frontenac “was a man of excellent parts, living much in society, and
completely ruined. He found it hard to bear the imperious temper of his
wife, and he was given the government of Canada to deliver him from
her, and afford him some means of living.” The Countess had no mind to
brave the rigors of her husband’s new seat of power, and accordingly
she accepted the offer of a suite of rooms at the Arsenal, where
she went to live with her congenial friend, the lively Mademoiselle
d’Outrelaise. During her long life at the Arsenal, she and her friend
gave a tone to French society; her _salon_ became famous for its wit
and gayety, and _les Divines_, as the ladies were called, were sought
after by the first people of the kingdom. Though she did not live
with her husband, and held him in some aversion, she never forgot
that she was his wife. She corresponded with him on occasion, and it
is established that often she proved of signal service to him in the
furtherance of his ambitious plans and projects. It was at the Arsenal
she died, at the advanced age of seventy-five.
When Frontenac sailed for the colony he was a matured man of the world,
and fifty-two years of age. “Had nature disposed him to melancholy,”
says Parkman, “there was much in his position to awaken it. A man
of courts and camps, born and bred in the focus of a most gorgeous
civilization, he was banished to the ends of the earth, among savage
hordes and half-reclaimed forests, to exchange the splendors of St.
Germain and the dawning glories of Versailles for a stern gray rock,
haunted by sombre priests, rugged merchants and traders, blanketed
Indians, and the wild bushrangers. But Frontenac was a man of action.
He wasted no time in vain regrets, and set himself to his work with the
elastic vigor of youth. His first impressions had been very favorable.
When, as he sailed up the St. Lawrence, the basin of Quebec opened
before him, his imagination kindled with the grandeur of the scene. ‘I
never,’ he wrote, ‘saw anything more superb than the position of this
town. It could not be better situated as the future capital of a great
empire.’” Such was the striking condition of Quebec when Frontenac
sailed into the port to assume the functions of his office. The King,
his powerful minister Colbert, the Intendant Talon, and the Governor
himself regarded the colony as a great prize, and one destined for a
future which should in no small degree reflect the glory and grandeur
of the old monarchy. Vast sums of money had been expended in colonizing
and defending it. Some of the best soldiers of the kingdom and many
desirable immigrants, inured to toil and hard work, were sent by Louis
to build up the new country and to develop its resources. Frontenac,
imbued with the same spirit as his sovereign, proceeded to bring
his enormous territory to a state of order. He convened a council
at Quebec, and administered an oath of allegiance to the leading
men in his dominions. He sought to inaugurate a monarchical form of
government. He created, with much pomp and show, three estates of his
realm,—the clergy, nobles, and commons. The former was composed of
the Jesuits and the Seminary priests. To three or four _gentilshommes_
then living in Quebec he added some officers belonging to his troops;
and these comprised the order of nobility. The commons consisted of
the merchants and citizens. The magistracy and members of council were
formed into a distinct body, though their place properly belonged to
the third estate. This great convocation took place on the 23d of
October, 1672, and the ceremonies were conducted in the church of
the Jesuits, which had been decorated for the purpose by the Fathers
themselves.
[Illustration: FROM LA POTHERIE.
[This view appears in the 1722 edition, i. 232; 1753 ed. ii. 232. It is
also in Shea’s _Le Clercq_, ii. 313. Harrisse (no. 240) notes a view on
the margin of a map in 1689.
Faillon, in his _Histoire de la Colonie Française_ (iii. 373), speaks
of two early plans of Quebec which are preserved, one of 1660,
the other of 1664. They resemble each other, except that the last
represents a projected line of fortifications across the peninsula; and
in engraving the latter, Faillon’s engraver has given the plate the
date of 1660, instead of 1664: _Plan du Haut et Bas Québec comme il
est en l’an 1660_. The _Catalogue_ of the Library of Parliament, 1858,
p. 1614, shows copies of plans of these dates copied from originals
in the Paris Archives. Cf. Harrisse, nos. 192-195, and no. 199 for a
manuscript map of 1670, _La ville haute et basse de Quebeck_, also
preserved in the same Archives; while the _Catalogue_ (p. 1614) of the
Canadian Parliament gives three of 1670, copies from originals at Paris.
Harrisse also notes (no. 220) as in the French Archives a _Carte du
Fort St. Louis de Québec_, dated 1683; (no. 221) a _Plan de la basse
ville de Québec_ (1683),—both by Franquelin: (no. 224) a _Plan de
la Ville et Chasteau de Québec, fait en 1685, ... par le Sr. de
Villeneuve_; and (no. 230) a _Carte des Environs de Québec ... en 1685
et 1686, par le Sr. de Villeneuve_. Cf. also the _Catalogue_ of the
Library of Parliament, pp. 1615, 1616.
Plans growing out of Phips’s attack in 1690 are mentioned elsewhere.
Of subsequent plans, Harrisse (no. 249) cites a _Plan de la Ville
de Québec_, 1693, as being in the French Archives, and others (nos.
252-254, 369) of 1694, 1695, and 1699. The _Catalogue_ of the Library
of Parliament also gives manuscript plans of 1693, 1698, 1700, and
1710. Cf. J. M. Le Moine, _Histoire des Fortifications et des Rues de
Québec_, 1875 (pamphlet).—ED.]]
Frontenac, who spoke and wrote well, made a speech to the citizens,
indicating the policy which he meant to pursue, and scattering advice
to the throng before him with a liberal hand. The three estates which
he had founded listened to an exhortation of some length. The priests
were urged to continue their labors in connection with the conversion
of the Indians, whom they were advised to train and civilize while
they converted. The nobles were praised for their culture and valiant
conduct, and urged to be assiduous in the improvement of the colony.
To the commons he recommended faithfulness in the discharge of their
duties to the King and to himself. After solemnly taking the oath, the
assembly dissolved. The Count next established municipal government
in Quebec, on a model which obtained in several cities of France. He
ordered the election of three citizens as aldermen, the senior of whom
should rank as mayor. This body was to take the place of the syndic,
and it was provided that one of the number should retire from office
every year. The electors would then fill the vacancy with some one of
their choice, though the Governor reserved the right to confirm or
reject the successful candidate. He then, with the assistance of some
of the chief people about him, framed a series of regulations for the
government of the capital, and notified the inhabitants that a meeting
would be held twice a year, where public questions would be discussed.
Frontenac’s reforms were exceedingly distasteful to the King, and the
minister very clearly conveyed his Majesty’s views on the subject,
in a despatch written on the 13th of June, 1673. Talon, who knew the
temper of the Court in such matters, had wisely abstained from taking
an active part in the Governor’s scheme, and feigned illness as the
cause for his non-attendance at the convention. Colbert wrote: “The
assembling and division of all the inhabitants into three orders or
estates, which you have done, for the purpose of having them take the
oath of fidelity, may have been productive of good just then. But
it is well for you to observe that you are always to follow, in the
government and management of that country, the forms in force here;
and as our kings have considered it for a long time advantageous to
their service not to assemble the States-General of their kingdom, with
a view perhaps to abolish insensibly that ancient form, you likewise
ought very rarely, or (to speak more correctly) never, give that form
to the corporate body of the inhabitants of that country; and it will
be necessary even in the course of a little time, and when the colony
will be still stronger than it now is, insensibly to suppress the
syndic, who presents petitions in the name of all the inhabitants, it
being proper that each should speak for himself, and that no one should
speak for the whole.” Louis’ policy was unmistakable. He assumed to be
the autocrat of his dominions, and anything which might be construed
into an attempt to weaken the principles of his policy met with a stern
rebuke. Frontenac’s colonial system might have benefited New France:
it was capable of being wisely administered, and rich developments
might have ensued; but the King would not have it, and the Governor was
forced to withdraw his plan.
Arbitrary and domineering to a degree, always anxious to preserve
his dignity and to exact respect from his subordinates in office and
from those about his court, whether lay or clerical, and a martinet
in compelling the observance of all rules of social and military
discipline, Frontenac, as may be supposed, did not get on well with
all parties in the colony. He made the fatal mistake of quarrelling
with the Jesuits and the Seminary priests,—the two religious orders
which at that time held the greater sway in Canada, and whose influence
among the people, and sometimes at court, was important, and not
easy to dispel. An enemy was also found in the Intendant Talon, who
suspiciously watched every movement which the Governor made, and
regularly reported his impressions to France. Talon, however, was
recalled before the quarrel had assumed very formidable proportions,
and Frontenac was well rid of him. A more dangerous element, and one
which could thwart him and upset his schemes, remained, however, to
tantalize him. He had his religious convictions, and was accounted a
good-living man, in the ordinary acceptance of the term. He regularly
went to Mass, and followed the observances of the Church; but his
Catholicism was framed in a more liberal school than that of the
followers of Loyola. His enemies said that he was a Jansenist. He
leaned towards the Recollect Fathers, attended their place of worship,
and often called on the King for additional priests of that order,
and took every opportunity to show them attention and marks of his
favor. When the Jesuits appeared too strong in number, he sent to
France for more Recollects, and through them he neutralized to some
extent the influence of the former. But the Jesuits were powerful,
diplomatic, and insidious. They constantly watched their opportunity,
and changed their mode of warfare according to the circumstances of
the hour. When the gloved hand answered their purpose, they used it;
but they had no scruple to strike with stronger weapons. Had Frontenac
chosen at the outset of his career to conciliate them and to play
into their hands, his administration might have been less fretful to
himself and vexatious to others. He might have fulfilled his original
intention, and bettered his fortunes in the way he desired. He might
have carried out some of his cherished reforms, for his zeal in that
direction was really very great, and he had his heart in his task; but
his haughty disposition would not be curbed, and he preferred to be
aggressive towards the Jesuits rather than conciliatory. The result
may be foreseen. Enemies sprang up about him on every side, and often
they were more dangerous than the Iroquois tribes who constantly
menaced the colony, and far more difficult to check than the English
of Massachusetts or of Albany. He early began writing letters to the
minister about his trials with the clergy. On the 2d of November,
1672, he wrote: “Another thing displeases me, and this is the complete
dependence of the Grand Vicar and the Seminary priests on the Jesuits,
for they never do the least thing without their order; so that they
[the Jesuits] are masters in spiritual matters, which, as you know, is
a powerful lever for moving everything else.” He complained of their
spies, and proceeded to resist their influence wherever he found it
asserting itself. The Sulpitians fared no better at his hands, and he
waged as bitter a warfare against them and those who followed their
teachings. He befriended the Recollects so warmly, that it is not
strange that they eagerly lent him all the assistance they could to
further his efforts in breaking down the power of their rivals. It is
said that at first he favored them out of a mere spirit of opposition
to the Bishop and his allies, the Jesuits; but as time wore on, his
favor deepened into affection, and he more than once declared to the
King that the Recollects ought to be more numerous than they were. He
told Colbert that their superior was a “very great preacher,” and that
he had “cast into the shade and given some chagrin to those in this
country who certainly are not so able.” He charged the clergy with
abusing the confessional and intermeddling with private family affairs,
and expressed his dislike in strong terms of their secret doings in the
colony, and their attempts to set husbands against wives, and parents
against children,—“and all,” he wrote to the minister, “as they say,
for the greater glory of God.” It is clear that the Count distrusted
the “Black Gowns” from the very first, and resolved to hold them at
arm’s length. Much of his energy was wasted in trying to lessen their
influence at court; and the King and his minister were kept pretty busy
reading and answering the recriminatory letters of the Governor and his
unsympathetic intendants, whose feelings always prompted them to side
with the Jesuits and the Church, and against Frontenac.
[Illustration]
A policy of Louis XIV. was the civilization of the Indians, and
Frontenac was, early in his career, instructed to take means to
civilize them, to have them taught the French language, and to
amalgamate them with the colonists. At that time the Count knew very
little about Indian nature; but he embarked in the scheme with all his
energy and zeal. He soon gained a mastery over the most savage tribes,
taught the warriors to call him father, and succeeded in inducing the
Iroquois to intrust him with the care of eight of their children,—four
girls and four boys. The former were given to the Ursulines, while he
kept two of the boys in his own house, and placed the others, at his
own cost, in respectable French families, and had them sent to school
to be educated. He tried to get the Jesuits to assist him in this task,
but they failed to respond cordially to his urging; and he complained
bitterly of their want of sympathy with the movement, even charging
them—not very accurately, it must be admitted—with “refusing to
civilize the Indians, because they wished to keep them in perpetual
wardship.”
But a new question now arose, and Frontenac’s mind was turned towards
western exploration. He warmly favored the idea, and, relinquishing
for the moment all thought of his trials with the priests, he gave
his whole attention to the proposals of that bold and self-reliant
explorer, the Sieur Robert de la Salle. This young man was poor in
pocket, but his head was full of schemes. There was much in common
between the two men. Both had strong will and ability of no mean
calibre. They were not easily discouraged, and having once engaged in
an undertaking, they had sufficient determination to carry it through.
Frontenac greatly liked La Salle, and the two remained fast friends
for many years. A short time before the Governor arrived in Canada,
the Iroquois had made an attack on the French, and Courcelle had been
compelled to punish them. To keep them in check and to facilitate the
fur-trade of the upper country, he decided that a fort should be built
near the outlet of Lake Ontario. This determination had also been
reached some time before by the Intendant Talon, and both officers
had submitted the suggestion to the King. Frontenac was not long in
perceiving the advantages which the establishment of such a fort
presented, and he resolved to build it, as much to protect the colony
as to augment his own slender resources, which were running very low.
La Salle had gained the confidence of the Governor, who had listened
to his overtures, and manifested great interest in everything he said.
“There was between them,” says Parkman, “the sympathetic attraction of
two bold and energetic spirits; and though Cavelier de la Salle had
neither the irritable vanity of the Count nor his Gallic vivacity of
passion, he had in full measure the same unconquerable pride and hardy
resolution. There were but two or three others in Canada who knew the
western wilderness so well. He was full of schemes of ambition and
of gain; and from this moment he and Frontenac seem to have formed
an alliance which ended only with the Governor’s recall.” The fort
recommended by Courcelle, if built, might be employed in intercepting
the trade which the tribes of the upper lakes had begun to carry on
with the Dutch and English of New York. This trade Frontenac resolved
to secure for Canada, though it must be said that those who would have
control of the fort would monopolize the larger share of the traffic
to themselves, to the great displeasure of the other merchants, who
resolutely set their faces against the project. Frontenac knew this
perfectly well, for it was principally with a desire to benefit himself
that he had given the plan countenance. La Salle understood the
western country, and was familiar with Lake Ontario and its shores.
He soon convinced the Governor that the most suitable spot for the
contemplated fortified post was at the mouth of the River Cataraqui,
and there, where the city of Kingston now stands, the fort[693] was
built, in July, 1673. La Salle had told Frontenac that the English were
intriguing with the Iroquois and the tribes of the upper lakes to get
them to break the treaty with the French and bring their furs to New
York. This statement was true, and it hastened the Governor’s action.
With his usual address, he announced his intention of making a tour
through the upper parts of the colony with a strong force of men, that
the Iroquois and their associates might be intimidated, and with a view
to the securing of a more permanent peace. He had no money to carry on
this crusade, so he issued an order to the people of Quebec, Montreal,
and Three Rivers, and other settlements within his jurisdiction,
calling on them to supply him, at their own cost, with men and canoes
as soon as the spring sowing had passed. The officers in the colony
were requested to join the expedition, and they dared not refuse. On
the 3d of June Frontenac left Quebec, accompanied by his guard, his
staff, some of the garrison of the Castle of St. Louis, and a band of
volunteers. Arriving at Montreal, he tarried there thirteen days with
his following. There were some matters which required his attention,
and he speedily set about to arrange them in a manner which should at
least be satisfactory to himself.
La Salle had been despatched to Onondaga, the political stronghold
of the Iroquois, on a mission to secure the attendance of their
chiefs at a council convened by the Governor, to be held at the Bay
of Quinté, situated on the north of Lake Ontario. While the intrepid
traveller was on his way, Frontenac changed his mind about the place
of rendezvous, and sent a messenger after him, calling the sachems to
meet at Cataraqui, where he decided to construct the fort. The Governor
of Montreal received Frontenac with suitable honors. He met him on
shore with his soldiers and people, a salute was fired, and the judge
and the syndic pronounced speeches of interminable length, but loyal
and patriotic in sentiment. The priests of St. Sulpice received him at
their church, where an address of welcome was presented. The _Te Deum_
was sung, and the Count then retired into the fort, and began preparing
for his coming journey. It was not long before he discovered that his
project found little favor in the eyes of the people of Montreal, who
feared that much of their trade might be diverted from them by the
construction of the new post. The Jesuits, too, were opposed to the
rearing of forts and trading posts in the upper districts, and they did
what they could to discourage the scheme. Frontenac was warned that
a Dutch fleet had captured Boston, and would soon proceed to attack
Quebec. Dablon was the author of this last rumor; but the Count turned
a deaf ear to remonstrance and report, and continued his preparations.
His followers and their stores were already on the way to Lachine, and
on the twenty-eighth of June the Governor-General himself set out. His
force consisted of four hundred men, including the Mission Indians, and
one hundred and twenty canoes and two flat-bottomed boats. The voyage
was an arduous and difficult one. Without the Indians, it is a question
whether it could have been accomplished at all. The fearful journey
was full of perils and hardships, and, to add to their discomfiture,
before the place of destination was reached rain fell in torrents.
Frontenac’s management of the Indians approached the marvellous. They
worked for him with genuine zeal, and showed by their toil as much as
by their manner that they respected his authority and admired him as
a man. He divined the Indian nature well, though he had been in the
country but a few months; and the longer he remained in the colony,
the greater his influence over them became. He knew when to bully and
when to conciliate, when to apply blandishments and when to be stern.
It was a happy thought which prompted him to call himself their father.
It gave him the superiority of position at once. Other Onontios were
brothers; but the great Onontio was the father.[694] He really liked
the Indians, and could enter into their ways and customs with a spirit
born of good-will. He was a frank, and often fiery soldier, and a true
courtier; but he could be playful with the Indian children, and it was
not beneath his dignity to lead a war-dance, should policy demand, as
it did sometimes. He seemed to know the thoughts of his dusky friends,
and they felt that he could read what was passing through their minds.
His control over the tribes, friends and foes alike, was certainly
never surpassed by any white man.
[Illustration]
He was, moreover, true to his allies; and on more than one occasion
refused to make peace for himself with the ferocious Iroquois, when he
could easily have done so, unless they complied with his terms, and
included in the treaty the Indians friendly to the French. He would
never abandon his friends to save himself; and the tribes, hostile and
friendly, early in his career learned this, and it served to establish
his fame as a man of fair dealing and chivalrous principle. He never
yielded his point even when his savage enemies were many and his
own forces few and feeble. He maintained his ascendency always, and
lecturing his children, pointed out the duties they should observe.
Such was his personal magnetism, that they listened and obeyed him
when their following was five times as great as his own. The secret
of Frontenac’s supremacy over savage nature seemed to lie in the fact
that he never ceased to have perfect faith and belief in himself. He
had fiery blood in his veins, and an iron will, that the blandishments
which he employed at times never quite concealed. Even when reduced to
severe straits, he did not lose that boldness of demeanor which carried
him through so many perils. The Iroquois gave him most trouble. They
were fond of fighting, and when they were not attacking the French,
they were waging war on the Illinois and Hurons, and on other tribes
whose aid was often found on the side of Frontenac. The Confederacy
preferred to sell their peltries to the English and Dutch of Albany,
than to the French. They drove with the English better bargains and
secured higher prices, and the English encouraged them to bring to them
their beaver skins. But the tribes who were friendly to their white
enemies had by far the richest product of these furs, and La Salle’s
fort of St. Louis, the mission of Michillimackinac, and other posts
really controlled the trade. To gain this traffic, and to divert it
into the hands of their newly-found friends, the English and Dutch,
the five tribes of the League proceeded in 1673 to make war on the
Indians who engrossed it. Great anxiety was felt in the colony when
this determination on the part of the Confederacy became known, and the
tribes interested—the Illinois, the Hurons, and Ottawas—manifested
the utmost fear. Frontenac deemed a conference advisable, and he
invited the Iroquois to come to him and discuss affairs; but the
arrogant warriors sent back an insolent answer, and told the messenger
that Frontenac should come to them,—a suggestion which some of the
French, who were terror-stricken, urged the Governor to act upon. But
the Count had no such intention, and refused to make any concession. He
sent them word that he would go no farther than Montreal, or, at the
utmost, to Fort Frontenac, to meet them. In August, he met the Hurons
and Ottawas at Montreal in council. There had been jealousy among the
tribes, but the Count warned them against dissension among themselves,
called them his children, and exhorted them to live together as
brethren. A celebrated Iroquois chief came next, with several of his
followers. This was Decanisora, who invited Frontenac to Oswego to meet
the Five Tribes. The Count, determined to hold his ground, replied
with firmness, “It is for the father to tell the children where to
hold council, not for the children to tell the father. Fort Frontenac
is the proper place, and you should thank me for going so far every
summer to meet you.” He then conciliated the chief with presents and a
wampum belt, telling him that the Illinois were Onontio’s children, and
therefore his brethren, and that he wished them all to live together
in harmony. There was peace for a brief space, but it did not continue
many months.
When Frontenac neared the end of his toilsome journey, and had reached
the first opening of Lake Ontario, he made up his mind to show the
Iroquois the full extent of his power, and to make as imposing a
display as possible. He arranged his canoes in line of battle, and
disposed of them in this wise: four squadrons, composing the vanguard,
went in front and in one line; then the two bateaux followed, and after
them came the Count at the head of all the canoes of his guard, of his
staff, and of the volunteers attached to his person. On his right, the
division from Three Rivers, and on his left, the Hurons and Algonquins
were placed. Two other squadrons formed a third line, and composed the
rear-guard. In this order they proceeded about half a league, when
an Iroquois canoe was observed to be approaching. It contained the
Abbé d’Urfé (who had met the Indians above the River Cataraqui, and
notified them of the Count’s arrival) and several Iroquois chiefs, who
offered to guide their visitors to the place of rendezvous. After an
exchange of civilities, their offer was accepted, and the whole party
proceeded to the spot selected. The Count was greatly pleased with the
locality, and spent the rest of the afternoon of the 12th of July in
examining the ground. The Iroquois were impatient to have him visit
them that night in their tents; but he sent them word that it was now
too late, but that in the morning, when it would be more convenient to
see and entertain each other, he would gladly do so. This reply was
considered satisfactory. At daybreak the next morning, the _réveillé_
was sounded, and at seven o’clock everybody was astir and under arms.
The troops were drawn up in double file around Frontenac’s tent, and
extended to the cabins of the Indians. Large sails were placed in front
of his tent for the savage deputies to sit on, and to the number of
sixty they passed through the two files thus formed to the council.
They were greatly impressed with the display, and “after having sat,
as is their custom, and smoked some time,” says the journal of the
Count’s voyage, “one of them, named Garakontie, who had always been the
warmest friend of the French, and who ordinarily acted as spokesman,
paid his compliment in the name of all the nations, and expressed the
joy they felt on learning from Sieur de la Salle Onontio’s design to
come and visit them. Though some evil-disposed spirits had endeavored
to excite jealousy among them at his approach, they could not, they
said, hesitate to obey his orders, but would come and meet him in the
confidence that he wished to treat them as a father would his children.
They were then coming, they continued, as true children, to assure
him of their obedience, and to declare to him the entire submission
they should always manifest to his command. The orator spoke, as
he claimed, in the name of the Five Nations, as they had only one
mind and one thought, in testimony whereof the captain of each tribe
intended to confirm what he had just stated in the name of the whole.”
The other chiefs followed, and after complimenting Frontenac, each
captain presented a belt of wampum, “which is worthy of note,” says
the chronicle, “because formerly it was customary to present only some
fathoms of stringed wampum.”
The Count replied in a form of address very similar to theirs. He
assured them that they did right in obeying the command of their
father, told them to take courage, and not to think that he had come
to make war. His mind was full of peace, and peace walked by his side.
After this harangue, he ordered six fathoms of wampum to be given to
them, and a gift of guns for the men, and prunes and raisins for the
women and children. The great council took place later on. Meanwhile,
the construction of the fort began, and the workmen pursued their
task with such ardor and speed, that by the 17th of July, the date
fixed for the grand council, it was well advanced. The work was done
under the supervision of Raudin, the engineer of the expedition. The
Indians watched the building of the fort with curious interest. The
Count regularly entertained two or three of the principal Iroquois at
each meal, while he fondled the children and distributed sweetmeats
among them, and invited the squaws to dance in the evenings. The
great council assembled at eight o’clock in the morning. The ceremony
was the same as that which had been observed at the preliminary
meeting. Frontenac wore his grandest air. He entreated them to become
Christians, and to listen to the instructions of the “Black Gowns.”
He praised, scolded, and threatened them in turn, and drawing their
attention to his retinue, said: “If your father can come so far, with
so great a force, through such dangerous rapids, merely to make you a
visit of pleasure and friendship, what would he do if you should awaken
his anger, and make it necessary for him to punish his disobedient
children? He is the arbiter of peace and war. Beware how you offend
him.” He further warned them not to molest the allies of the French, on
pain of chastisement. He told them that the storehouse at Cataraqui was
built as a proof of his affection, and that all the goods they needed
could be had from there. He could not give them the terms yet, because
the cost of transportation was so far unknown to him. He cautioned them
against listening to men of bad character, and recommended the Sieur de
la Salle and such as he as persons to be heeded. He asked the chiefs
to give him a number of their children to be educated at Quebec, not
as hostages, but out of pure friendship. The Indians wanted time to
consider this proposition, and the next year they acceded to it. At
intervals, during the delivery of his speech, Frontenac paused and gave
the Indians presents, which seemed to please them. The council closed,
and three days later, the Iroquois started on their journey homeward,
while Frontenac’s party returned in detachments. The fort was finished,
and the barracks nearly built. Frontenac would have left with his men
for home sooner than he did, but a band of Indians from the villages on
the north side of Lake Ontario being announced, he remained with some
troops to receive them. He treated them as he had treated the others,
and pronounced the same speech. Leaving a garrison in the fort, he then
set out for Montreal, which he reached on the 1st of August.[695]
The enterprise cost the King ten thousand francs, and Frontenac
regarded the investment as a good one indeed. He hoped that he had
impressed the savages with fear and respect, that he had obtained a
respite from the ravages of the Iroquois, and that the fort would be
the means of keeping the peltry trade in the hands of the French, its
situation affording the opportunity of cutting it off from the English,
who were making efforts to secure it for themselves. Frontenac wrote to
the minister in November, that with a fort at the mouth of the Niagara
and a vessel on Lake Erie, the French could command all the upper lakes.
François Perrot, the Governor of Montreal, owed his position to Talon,
his wife’s uncle, who had induced the Sulpitians, the proprietors and
feudal lords of Montreal and the island, and in whom the appointment
rested, to give the place to him. Knowing that the priests could at
will depose him, he sought to protect himself by asking the King to
give him a royal appointment. This Louis did; and the Sulpitians
could now make no change without consent of the King. Perrot was a
man of little principle, selfish and unscrupulous, who turned every
movement to his own advantage. His passion was for money-making, and
his position as governor gave him many opportunities. One of his
first acts, with that object in view, was to set up a storehouse on
Perrot Island, which gave him full command of the fur-trade. This post
was situated just above Montreal, and directly in the route of the
tribes of the upper lakes and their vicinity. A retired and trusted
lieutenant, named Brucy, was placed in charge, whose chief business
it was to intercept the Indians and secure their merchandise, to the
no small profit of the Governor and himself, and the great scandal of
the neighborhood. The forests were ranged by _coureurs de bois_, who
also trafficked with the savages, and bore off the richest peltries
before the real merchants of Montreal had had the opportunity. King
Louis had in vain attempted, by royal edicts of outlawry and stringent
instructions to his representatives and subordinates, to dislodge the
bushrangers and to put an end to their doings. The _coureurs de bois_,
however, were hardy sons of the soil; some of them were soldiers who
had deserted from the army; all of them were men of endurance, and
accustomed to brave the sternest hardships. They loved their wild life
and the adventurous character of their calling. They were, moreover,
on very excellent terms with Perrot, who connived at their escapades
and shut his ears to all complaint. He had no motive to heed the order
of his sovereign, so long as the wayward rangers shared with him the
proceeds of their dealings with the Indians. This, on their part, they
were very willing to do.
Frontenac was jealous of Perrot’s advantages, and though he had but few
soldiers in his command with whom to enforce obedience, he determined
to strike a blow at the bushrangers, and make an attempt to execute
the King’s orders. Perrot had of late grown despotic and tyrannical.
He was comparatively beyond the reach of his superior, and had matters
pretty much under his own control. The journey from Quebec to Montreal
sometimes occupied a fortnight, and the Governor-General, as he well
knew, was not able to strike heavily with the shattered remnants of
forces who served under him. Perrot was therefore bold and defiant;
but he miscalculated the temper of his chief, and it was not long
before the arms of Frontenac were long enough to reach him. Perrot,
in a fit of temper, had imprisoned the judge of Montreal because that
functionary had dared to remonstrate against the disorders which had
been perpetrated by the _coureurs de bois_. The affair caused much
excitement; and with other acts of the Governor, the Sulpitians were
soon convinced of the grave error they had made in their choice of
a chief magistrate. They were powerless, however, to unseat him.
Frontenac now wrote to the minister, and asked for a galley, to the
benches of which it was his intention to chain the outlaws as rowers.
He then ordered the judge at Montreal to seize every _coureur de bois_
that he could find. Two of them were living at the house of Lieutenant
Carion, a friend of Perrot’s, and when the judge’s constable went to
lay hands on them, Carion abused the officer, and allowed the men
to escape. Perrot indorsed the conduct of his lieutenant, and even
threatened the judge with arrest, should he make a similar attempt
again.
[Illustration: CANADIAN ON SNOW-SHOES.
A fac-simile of a print in Potherie, vol. i.]
Frontenac, when he heard of the manner in which his orders had been
treated, flew into a passion. He despatched Lieutenant Bizard and three
soldiers to Montreal, charged to arrest and convey to the capital the
offending Carion. Bizard succeeded in making the arrest, and left a
letter in the house of Le Ber the merchant for Perrot, from Frontenac,
giving notice of what had been done. Perrot was, however, earlier
advised of the arrest. He hastened with a sergeant and three or four
soldiers, found Bizard, and indignantly ordered him under arrest. Nor
did Le Ber fare better, for, because he had testified to the scene he
had witnessed, he was thrown into jail. These arrests produced much
excitement in the place, and Perrot after a while was aware that he had
acted with inconsiderate rashness. He released Bizard, and sent him off
to Quebec, the bearer of a sullen and impertinent letter to the Count.
In due time an answer came, in an order to come to Quebec and render an
account of his conduct. Frontenac also wrote to the Abbé Salignac de
Fénelon,[696]—a zealous young missionary stationed at Montreal, one of
whose uncles had been a firm friend of Frontenac during the progress
of the Canadian war,—and desired him to see Perrot and explain the
situation. The Abbé’s task was a delicate but congenial one, and he
pursued it with such good effect that the Governor was induced to
accompany him to headquarters. They made the journey on snow-shoes,
and walked the whole distance of one hundred and eighty miles on the
St. Lawrence. The interview with the Count was short. Both men were
choleric and easily excited. Perrot was disappointed at his reception,
after taking the trouble to come so far, and at such a season of the
year. Frontenac was stubborn and angry, and the position of his rival
at his feet did not mollify his passion, but rather increased it. He
put an end to the interview by locking up his offending subordinate in
the château, and ordering guards to be placed over him day and night.
A trusty friend of Frontenac, La Nouguère by name, was despatched to
Montreal to take command. Brucy was seized and cast into prison, while
a determined war was made on the _coureurs de bois_. The two who had
been the main cause of the recent trouble were captured and sent to
Quebec, where one of them was hanged in the presence of Perrot. The
end of this war of extermination soon came, and Frontenac informed the
minister that only five of these rangers of the wood remained at large;
all the others had returned to the settlements, and given up their
hazardous calling.
The old jealousy between Quebec and Montreal now showed itself again.
The Sulpitians thought that Frontenac had acted a high-handed part in
placing La Nouguère in command over their district without as much as
consulting them. Perrot was still their selected governor, and they
revolted against the arbitrary conduct of the Governor-General. They
roused the colonists against Frontenac’s course, and the Abbé Fénelon,
who possessed many of the indiscretions of youth, and who felt that
he had been trapped, became the most bitter of the Count’s enemies.
Before he left Quebec to return home, he gave his former friend a good
deal of abuse; and his first act on reaching Montreal was to preach
a sermon full of meaning against Frontenac. Dollier de Casson, the
superior of the congregation, reproved the preacher and disclaimed
the sermon. Fénelon, in turn, declared that bad rulers in general,
and not Frontenac in particular, were meant; but his future conduct
belied his words. He made the cause of Perrot his own, and was active
in his behalf. Frontenac summoned him before the council on a charge
of inciting sedition. The Abbé d’Urfé, a relative of Fénelon, tried
to smooth matters over with the Count, but he fared very ill, and was
shown the door for his pains.
And now ensued a remarkable trial before the council at Quebec. Perrot
was charged with disobeying the royal edicts and of treating with
contempt the royal authority. The other offender was the Abbé Fénelon.
Frontenac had a pliant council to second his wishes. The councillors
owed their positions to him, and as he had power to remove them when
he willed, they soon ranged themselves on his side, and showed that
they were friendly to his cause. Perrot challenged the right of the
Governor-General to preside over the case, on the ground that he was
a personal enemy. He moreover objected to several of the councillors
on various pretexts. New judges were appointed for the trial, and
Perrot’s protests continuing, the board overruled all his exceptions,
and the trial went on. Other sessions proceeded to try the impetuous
Abbé. Frontenac presided at the council-board. When Fénelon was led in,
he seated himself in a vacant chair, though ordered to stand by the
Count, and persisted in wearing his hat firmly pressed over his brows.
Hot words passed between the Governor and his prisoner, the result
of which was that the Abbé was put under arrest. The priest assumed
that Frontenac had no right to try him, and that the ecclesiastical
court alone had jurisdiction over him. The war grew fierce, and the
councillors, half afraid of what they had done, at length decided to
refer the question to the King himself. The Governor of Montreal and
the vehement Abbé were accordingly despatched to France, and all the
documents relating to the case were sent with them. Frontenac presented
his side of the argument in a long despatch, which, considering his
provocation, was moderate in tone and calm in judgment. The Abbé d’Urfé
accompanied the prisoners to France, and as his cousin, the Marquise
d’Allègre, was shortly to marry Seignelay, the son of Colbert, he hoped
much from his visit. Perrot, too, was not without friends near the
King: Talon, his wife’s relative, held a post at court. Besides these
influences the Church had other means at work.
In April, 1675, the King and Colbert disposed of the Perrot question.
They wrote calmly and with dignity. His Majesty condemned the action of
Perrot in imprisoning Bizard, and had the offender confined for three
weeks in the Bastile, “that he may learn to be more circumspect in the
discharge of his duty, and that his example may serve as a warning to
others.” He had already endured ten months of imprisonment in Quebec.
The King also told Frontenac that he should not, “without absolute
necessity,” cause his “commands to be executed within the limits of
a local government, like that of Montreal, without first informing
its governor.” Perrot was sent back to his government, and ordered to
apologize to Frontenac. Colbert informed the Count of the approaching
marriage of his son with the heiress of the house of Allègre, and
hinted at the closeness of the connection which existed between the
Abbé d’Urfé and himself. Frontenac was urged to show the Abbé “especial
consideration,” and also to treat with kindness the priests of
Montreal. Fénelon was sustained in his plea that he had the right to be
tried by an ecclesiastical tribunal; but his superior, Bretonvilliers,
absolutely forbade him to return to Canada, and wrote a letter to the
members of his order at Montreal, telling them not to interfere in
worldly matters, but to profit by the example of M. Fénelon. He advised
them “in matters of this sort” to “stand neutral.”
[Illustration]
The King now resolved to make some administrative changes in New
France, with a view, it is probable, of lessening the hold of Frontenac
on the body politic of the colony. He announced that the appointment of
councillors should rest with him alone in future, and promptly filled
the vacant office of Intendant by appointing M. Duchesneau whose duty
it was to watch the Governor-General, and to manage certain details in
executive work. Bishop Laval, who had been absent from Canada for some
time, also returned to his see; and Frontenac, who had ruled alone,
without bishop, without intendant, and with a subservient council,
viewed the new aspect of affairs with ill-concealed disgust. It was
not long before the threatened outbreak came. The question of selling
brandy to the natives, which had disturbed previous administrations,
became again a contention between governor and prelate.[697] The
Intendant promptly sided with the Bishop and the clergy, while the
latter stood aside at times, and allowed their secular ally to lead
the contest, content themselves to give him arguments and advice. One
question after another arose. Many of them were of trivial import, but
all of them were vexatious and troublesome, and to an imperious mind
like Frontenac’s galling in the extreme. The old rivalry of Church
and State in the matter of honors and precedence became troublesome.
Colbert wrote strongly to Duchesneau, and ordered him not to make
himself a partisan of the Bishop, and to pay proper respect to
Frontenac. The latter was commanded to live in harmony and peace with
the Intendant. The King was incensed at the constant bickerings, and
ordered Frontenac to conform to the practice prevailing at Amiens, and
to demand no more. The Intendant was roundly berated by the minister,
who told him that he ought to be able to understand the difference
between a governor and an intendant, and that he was completely in the
wrong as regards the pretensions he had assumed.
But if the religious quarrel was settled for a time, a civil difficulty
arose. The council no longer remained a mere body for registering the
Governor’s decrees. The new order of things gave him a council of men
who were opposed in many respects to his views and interests. The
King had reinstated Villeray,—a former councillor, and a man wholly
under Jesuitical influence. Frontenac, who thought him a “Jesuit in
disguise,” called him “an intriguing busybody, who makes trouble
everywhere.” The attorney-general was Auteuil, another enemy of the
Governor. Tilly was a third member, and the Count at first approved of
him; but his opinion was destined to change. Under the ordinance of
Sept. 23, 1675, the Intendant, whose official position entitled him to
rank as the third man in the colony, was appointed president of the
council. His commission, dated June 5, 1675, read: “Présider au Conseil
Souverain en l’absence du dit Sieur de Frontenac.” Frontenac was styled
in many of the despatches which reached him from the Crown, “Chief and
President of the Council.” A conflict of authority immediately arose,
and both Governor and Intendant claimed with equal right (one would
suppose from the royal documents in their possession) the position
of presiding officer. Frontenac bided his time, and remained patient
until late in the autumn, when the last vessel cleared for France.
Then he asserted his claim to the title of chief and president, and
demanded to be so styled on the records of the council. In support of
his contention he exhibited a letter from Louis dated May 12, 1678. The
Intendant, supported by the clergy, opposed the claim. The Governor
refused to compromise, scolded Duchesneau, and threatened to teach
him his duty, while he ordered Villeray, Tilly, and Auteuil to their
houses, and commanded them to remain there until he should give them
permission to leave.[698] Auteuil begged the King to interfere, and
the wearied monarch wrote to his representative: “You have wished to
be styled Chief and President on the records of the supreme council,
which is contrary to my edict concerning that council; and I am the
more surprised at this demand, since I am very sure that you are the
only man in my kingdom who, being honored with the title of governor
and lieutenant-general, would care to be styled chief and president of
such a council as that of Quebec.” So the King refused the title of
president to either, and commanded that Duchesneau should perform the
duties of presiding officer. He also said that Frontenac had abused
his authority in exiling two councillors and the attorney-general for
so trivial a cause, and warned him to be careful in future, lest he be
recalled from office. Several other disputes in the council followed.
They were mostly about matters of small moment, but they created great
storms while they lasted. The imprisonment of Councillor Amours by
order of the Count for an alleged infringement of the passport law, and
the presence of his wife with a petition to the council for redress and
a speedy trial, caused much discussion and provoked very strong feeling.
Duchesneau was the object of Frontenac’s constant displeasure. On him
was visited his fiercest wrath; but the Intendant bore it all with
varying moods,—sometimes disputing with Frontenac, at others abusing
him, and occasionally treating the diatribe of vituperation which
flowed from the Count’s lips with lofty disdain and scorn. He wrote
letters to the Court, and lodged complaint after complaint against
the Governor, who, in his turn, pursued the same course. Out of the
council quarrels others involving more important issues sprang up,
and nearly all the people in the colony were in time driven to one
side or the other. With Frontenac, as Parkman points out, were ranged
La Salle and his lieutenant, La Forêt; Du Lhut, the leader of the
_coureurs de bois_; Boisseau, agent of the farmers of the revenue;
Barrois, the Governor’s secretary; Bizard, lieutenant of his guard;
and others. Against him were the members of the council, Aubert de la
Chesnaye, Le Moyne and his sons, Louis Joliet, Jacques Le Ber, Sorel,
Boucher, Varennes, and many of the ecclesiastics. Duchesneau received
replies from the Court, and they must have been galling to his pride
and self-respect. He was plainly assured that though Frontenac was
not blameless, his own conduct was far more open to censure. In this
strain Colbert’s letter continued, and he said: “As to what you say
concerning his violence, his trade with the Indians,[699] and in
general all that you allege against him, the King has written to him
his intentions; but since, in the midst of all your complaints, you
say many things which are without foundation, or which are no concern
of yours, it is difficult to believe that you act in the spirit which
the service of the King demands,—that is to say, without interest and
without passion. If a change does not appear in your conduct before
next year, his Majesty will not keep you in your office.” The King
returned his usual advice to Frontenac, told him to live on good terms
with the Intendant, and prohibited him from trading with the Indians.
But neither the letters of the King nor the minister had much effect
apparently, for the Governor and Intendant continued to war against
each other. At last the King wrote thus sharply to the Count:—
“What has passed in regard to the _coureurs de bois_ is entirely
contrary to my orders, and I cannot receive in excuse for it your
allegation that it is the Intendant who countenances them by the trade
he carries on, for I perceive clearly that the fault is your own. As I
see that you often turn the orders I give you against the very object
for which they are given, beware not to do so on this occasion. I
shall hold you answerable for bringing the disorder of the _coureurs
de bois_ to an end throughout Canada; and this you will easily succeed
in doing if you make a proper use of my authority. Take care not to
persuade yourself that what I write to you comes from the ill-offices
of the Intendant. It results from what I fully know from everything
which reaches me from Canada, proving but too well what you are
doing there. The Bishop, the ecclesiastics, the Jesuit Fathers, the
supreme council, and, in a word, everybody, complain of you; but I am
willing to believe that you will change your conduct, and act with the
moderation necessary for the good of the colony.”
Frontenac felt the ground slipping under him, but he continued his
suicidal policy, while he wrote to some friends in France to recount
his woes, and to solicit their good offices with the Court.
[Illustration]
Seignelay came to power in 1681. He was the son of Colbert, and a man
of very good abilities, matured under the eye of the great minister.
He soon received long letters from Frontenac and the Intendant, filled
with accusations and countercharges. Affairs had gone badly during
the spring and summer of 1681. Some blows were struck, and a resort
to sharper weapons was hinted at. The Intendant, Frontenac said, had
barricaded his house and armed his servants. Duchesneau declared that
his son had been beaten by the Governor for a slight offence, and
afterward imprisoned in the château for a month, despite the pleadings
of the Bishop in his behalf. These matters, and much more, were
regularly reported to the new minister. Both officials stated that furs
had been carried to the English settlements, and each blamed the other
for it. The Intendant maintained that the faction led by Frontenac
had spread among the Indians a rumor of a pestilence at Montreal, for
the purpose of keeping them away from the fair, and in order that
the bushrangers might purchase the beaver-skins at a low price. The
allegation was groundless, but it had its effect at court. The King,
tired at last of the constant strife, recalled both Frontenac and
Duchesneau in the following year.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Frontenac’s successor was Le Fèbvre de la Barre, a soldier of repute
who had already rendered his country good service in the West Indian
war, where he had gained some notable successes against the English.
For reducing Antigua and Montserrat and recapturing Cayenne from the
enemy, he had been promoted to a lieutenant-generalship. He arrived
at Quebec with Meules, his intendant, at a most inopportune time. The
great fire of August 4, 1682, had laid waste fifty-five houses, and
destroyed vast quantities of goods.
[Illustration]
The new Governor took up his residence in the château, while Meules
went to live in a house in the woods. La Barre was a very different man
from Frontenac. He had nothing of that soldier’s peculiar energy or
determination. He was a temporizer, cold and insincere, and no match
for Indian diplomacy or duplicity. The Indians gauged his capacity
before he had been in Canada many weeks, and as compared with Frontenac
they felt that they had a child to deal with. The King had given him
pretty plain instructions. He was ordered not only to apply himself
to prevent the violence of the Iroquois against the French, but also
to endeavor to keep the savages at peace among themselves, and by all
means to prevent the Iroquois from making war on the Illinois and
other tribes. He was further told that his Majesty did not attach
much importance to the discoveries which had lately been made in the
countries of the Nadoussioux, the River Mississippi, and other parts
of North America, deeming them of but slight utility; but he enjoined
that the Sieur de la Salle be permitted to complete the exploration
he had commenced, as far as the mouth of the Mississippi, “in case he
consider, after having examined into it with the Intendant, that such
discovery can be of any utility.”
It was not long before La Barre exhibited his total incapacity for
governing Canada. He lowered the French prestige in the eyes of the
Indians of the Confederacy, and left his red allies to their fate. He
was jealous of La Salle, and hated him cordially. Charlevoix accounts
for his incapacity by saying that “his advanced age made him credulous
when he ought to be distrustful, timid when he ought to be bold, dark
and cautious towards those who deserved his confidence, and deprived
him of the energy necessary to act as the critical condition of the
colony demanded when he administered its affairs.” He was not very
old, being little more than sixty years of age at the time. He found
the Iroquois flushed with victory over their enemies, and displaying
an arrogant bearing towards the French. He wrote a braggart letter to
the King; said that with twelve hundred men he would attack twenty-six
hundred Iroquois, and then begged for more troops. To the minister he
wrote that war was imminent, and unless those “haughty conquerors”
were opposed, “half our trade and all our reputation” would be lost.
He was always talking about fighting; but those about him knew that
he rarely meant all he said. He developed a remarkable predilection
for trade, and soon after his arrival allied himself to several of the
Quebec merchants, with that object in view. This gave grave offence
to all those who could not participate. The tables were turned, and
the old enemies of Frontenac now reigned, while La Salle and La Forêt
were deposed. Du Lhut, the leader of the _coureurs de bois_, and a
quondam friend of the Ex-Governor, transferred his allegiance to the
new authority. La Barre soon showed his feeling towards La Salle.
Jacques Le Ber and Aubert de la Chesnaye were early despatched to Fort
Frontenac, which La Forêt commanded, with orders to seize it and all it
contained, on the flimsy pretext that La Salle had failed to fulfil the
conditions of his contract. La Forêt was offered his former position
as commander of the fort; but he refused to be false to his chief, and
sailed for France in high dudgeon.
On the 10th of October a conference on the state of affairs with the
Iroquois was held. There were present the Governor, Intendant, Bishop
of Quebec, M. Dollier, Superior of the Seminary of St. Sulpice of
Montreal, Father Dablon, the Governor of Three Rivers, and others. The
meeting was harmonious, and the importance and danger of the situation
seemed to be understood. A most uninviting prospect lay before the
little colony. The Iroquois, well armed and equipped, could strike
first the Illinois, and in turn all the tribes in alliance with the
French, and so divert the peltry trade into other channels, and finally
fall upon the French themselves. It was stated at the conference that
the English were responsible for this, and that they had been urging
the Iroquois on for four years, in order to ruin Canada, and to secure
for themselves and the Dutch the entire peltry trade of the continent.
It was determined to make an effort to prevent the Iroquois from
bringing upon the friendly Indians the fate they had previously dealt
upon the Algonquins, the Andastes, the Abenaquis, and others. It was
finally thought that the war might be averted for a time, and meanwhile
the King was urgently importuned for troops and two hundred hired men,
besides arms and ammunition.
The attack came sooner than had been expected. In the early spring the
Seneca Indians were reported to be moving in considerable force on the
Illinois, the Hurons, and the Ottawas of the lakes. La Barre, greatly
excited, hastened his preparations. He wrote to France, explaining the
posture of affairs, and demanding more troops. Du Lhut was sent with
thirty men, with powder and lead, to Michillimackinac, to strengthen
the defences there, and to guard the stores, of which there was a
great quantity. Charles Le Moyne was despatched to Onondaga with a
mission, which so far succeeded that forty-three Iroquois chiefs went
to Montreal to meet the Governor. They arrived on the 14th of August. A
council was held, and over two thousand crowns’ worth of presents were
distributed among the Indians. La Barre demanded friendship for the
Ottawas, the Algonquins, and the Hurons; but there was no firmness in
his demands. He was timid, and when the fierce Senecas declared that
the Iroquois made war on the Illinois because they deserved to die, he
said nothing, and his silence sealed their doom. The delegates were
asked to agree not to plunder French traders who were provided with
passports. They agreed to this. It was a suggestion of La Chesnaye, and
evidently aimed at La Salle, though La Barre denied that he gave the
Iroquois liberty to plunder and kill the explorer. By a sort of poetic
justice, the first captures the Iroquois made under their agreement
were two boats belonging to La Chesnaye, which had gone up the lakes
during Frontenac’s reign, and had no passports. On the 30th of August
the deputies left Montreal.
La Barre continued his trading operations. He and La Chesnaye
anticipated the annual market at Montreal, by sending up a large fleet
of vessels, and securing enormous quantities of furs, a great part of
which was clandestinely sent to Albany and New York. The Governor’s
persecutions of La Salle went on, and in the spring he sent the
Chevalier de Baugis, with canoes and soldiers, to seize his fort of St.
Louis; but his scheme suffered defeat. La Barre now prepared in earnest
for war, and was resolved to attack the Senecas in the following
August (1684). On the 31st of July the King wrote that he had sent him
three hundred soldiers.
It has been said that the English colonists of New York had instigated
the Iroquois to make war on the French. Colonel Thomas Dongan, Lord
Tyrconnel’s nephew, and a Roman Catholic, was governor of New York.
Though he had respect for the King of France, he nevertheless thought
himself entitled to a share of the fur-trade, which had so long
remained a monopoly of the Canadians, and he decided to make some
effort to obtain it. The Duke of York warned him against offending
the French governor; but while Dongan publicly professed to observe
his Grace’s injunction, he was really in frequent intrigue with the
enemies of the French, and did all he could to provoke the Iroquois
into making war on La Barre and his allies. The English had secured
the allegiance of the five tribes of the Confederacy; the hatchet had
been buried, and the song of peace had been sung. Dongan was wily, and
got the Iroquois to recognize his king as their lawful sovereign. This
would give him the command of the country south of the great lakes.
The Indians readily promised, but without any intention of keeping
their word. Their motive evidently was to make the most out of either
party, and yield nothing. La Barre complained of the Senecas and
Cayugas, and wrote to Dongan, telling him not to sell the offenders any
arms or ammunition, and saying that he meant to attack the tribes for
plundering French canoes and attempting a French fort. Dongan wrote in
reply that the Iroquois were British subjects, and if they had done
wrong, reparation should be made. Meanwhile he urged La Barre not to
make his threatened attack, and begged him to keep the peace between
the two colonies. Next he laid the complaints of the French governor
before the chiefs, who on their part declared that the French had
carried arms to their foes, the Illinois and the Miamis. Dongan handled
the question with tact, and played upon the fears of the Indians so
well that he got them to consent to his placing the arms of the Duke of
York in their villages, which he said would save them from the French.
They further agreed that they would not make peace with Onontio without
consent of the English. In return for this, Dongan promised aid in case
their country should be invaded.
The English Governor was a believer in prompt action, and he hastened
to have the Iroquois’ subjection to King Charles confirmed. To that end
he despatched a Dutch interpreter, Arnold Viele by name, to Onondaga.
But Charles Le Moyne and the crafty Jesuit Jean de Lamberville, who
knew the Indian character well, were there before the envoy of the
English arrived. Le Moyne had been sent to invite the tribes to a
conference with La Barre. The chief of the Onondagas was Otréouati,
or Big Mouth, a famous orator and influential warrior, and ranking as
one of the ablest Indians of the Confederacy. He was unscrupulous as
regards keeping promises, but his valor and astuteness were beyond
question. The two Frenchmen had spent some days in trying to induce
the Onondagas to get their Seneca confederates to make peace with the
French. The Senecas at first would not hear of it; but finally they
succumbed to Big Mouth’s eloquence, and gave the Onondagas power to
complete a treaty for them. Viele appeared on the scene; but he was
no diplomat, and he shocked the pride of the Onondagas when he told
them, with more arrogance than policy, that the English were masters of
their territory, and that they had no right to hold council with the
French without permission. It was natural that Big Mouth should become
indignant: he asserted the independence of his tribe, and told his
warriors and chiefs not to listen to the proposals of a man who seemed
to be drunk, so opposed to all reason was what he uttered. The end of
it was that Big Mouth and his sachems consented to accompany Le Moyne
to meet La Barre.
The French Governor was ready for the campaign, having seven hundred
Canadians, a hundred and thirty regulars, and two hundred mission
Indians under his command. He was to be reinforced by a band of Indians
on the way, and a company of _coureurs de bois_ led by Du Lhut and La
Durantaye. More warriors were to join him at Niagara. He declared that
he intended to exterminate the Senecas; but his Intendant, Meules, had
no faith in his promises, and kept urging him on, as if he feared that
he would make peace without striking a blow,—a fatal course in his
eyes. He wrote to the Governor two letters on the subject, concluding
the second one thus: “If we do not destroy them, they will destroy
us. I think you see but too well that your honor and the safety of
the country are involved in the results of this war.” He also sent
a despatch to Seignelay, which contained the customary complaints
against La Barre, and some vigorous comments on his conduct in trading
against the orders of the King, and his warlike pretensions which
meant nothing. “I will take the liberty to tell you, Monseigneur,”
he wrote, “though I am no prophet, that I discover no disposition on
the part of Monsieur the General to make war against the aforesaid
savages. In my belief, he will content himself by going in a canoe as
far as Fort Frontenac, and then send for the Senecas to treat of peace
with them, and deceive the people, the Intendant, and, if I may be
allowed with all possible respect to say so, his Majesty himself.” La
Barre proceeded on his way with his army, and after encountering a few
adventures _en route_, finally reached Fort Frontenac, where the whole
party encamped. A malarial fever broke out among the French, and many
died. La Barre himself was greatly reduced and wasted by the disease,
and so disheartened that he abandoned his plans, and sought to secure
peace on the most favorable terms that he could get. He no longer
thought of punishing the Senecas, nor had he the courage to invite them
to council. He crossed over to La Famine with a few men, and sent Le
Moyne to beg the tribes to meet him on their side of the lake. Here
provisions grew scarce, and hunger and discontent prevailed among his
followers. Several soldiers languished through disease; others died.
La Barre awaited the return of his envoy with fear and suspense. When
at last he came on the third of the month, with Big Mouth and thirteen
deputies, the Governor received the party with what grace he could.
He had sent his sick men away, and told the Indians that his army was
at Fort Frontenac; but the keen-witted savages were not deceived, and
one of their number, understanding French, gathered during the evening
from the conversation of the soldiers the true condition of affairs.
The council was held on the 4th of September; and Baron La Hontan, who
was present, gives a long account of what took place. The Governor
related the offences of the Iroquois; charged them with maltreating
and robbing the French traders in the country of the Illinois, with
introducing the “English into the lakes which belong to the King, my
master, and among the tribes who are his children, in order to destroy
the trade of his subjects,” and with having made “several barbarous
inroads into the country of the Illinois and Miamis, seizing, binding,
and leading into captivity an infinite number of those savages in time
of peace.... They are the children of my king,” he said, “and are not
to remain your slaves. They must at once be set free and sent home.”
Should such things occur again, he was ordered, he said, to declare
war against the offending tribes. He agreed to grant them terms of
peace, provided they made atonement for the past, and promised good
conduct for the future; otherwise he would burn their villages and
destroy them. Big Mouth rose and replied. He very soon convinced La
Barre of the hopelessness of his task. “Listen, Onontio,” he said. “I
am not asleep, my eyes are open; and by the sun that gives me light I
see a great captain at the head of a band of soldiers who talks like
a man in a dream. He says that he has come to smoke the pipe of peace
with the Onondagas; but I see that he came to knock them in the head
if so many of his Frenchmen were not too weak to fight. I see Onontio
raving in a camp of sick men, whose lives the Great Spirit has saved by
smiting them with disease. Our women had snatched war-clubs, and our
children and old men seized bows and arrows, to attack your camp, if
our warriors had not restrained them, when your messenger, Akouessan,
appeared in our village.” The savage refused reparation; said that his
tribe had been born free, and that they depended on neither Onontio nor
on Corlaer, the governor of New York. “We have knocked the Illinois
in the head,” he continued, “because they cut down the tree of peace
and hunted the beaver on our lands. We have done less than the English
and the French, who have seized upon the lands of many tribes, driven
them away, and built towns, villages, and forts in the country.” La
Barre, greatly disgusted, retired to his tent, and the council closed.
In the afternoon another session was held, and in the evening a treaty
was patched up. Big Mouth agreed to some reparation, which, however,
he never made; but he would not consent to make peace with La Barre’s
allies, the Illinois, whom he declared he would fight to the death.
He also demanded that the council fire should be removed from Fort
Frontenac to La Famine,—a concession yielded by La Barre without
hesitation, but which Frontenac would never have granted.
The Governor returned home the next day, broken and dispirited; his
men followed, wasted by fever and hunger, as best they could. This
disgraceful truce was treated with contempt by all, the allies of the
French included; and for a while it was thought that the friendly
tribes would go over to the enemy in a body, make peace with their
old rivals, and divert the channel of trade from Montreal to Albany.
Lamberville only indorsed the Governor’s conduct, and styled him the
“savior of the country” for having made peace at so critical a time.
Meules and the others viewed the matter differently, and the former
wrote to the minister that the Governor’s excuses were a mere pretence;
that he had lost his wits, had gone off in a fright, and since his
return his officers could not abstain from showing him the contempt in
which they held him. The King, much annoyed, recalled La Barre, and the
Marquis de Denonville, a colonel in the Queen’s regiment of Dragoons,
full of piety and a devoted friend of the Jesuits, was sent to succeed
him.
[Illustration]
Denonville had been thirty years a soldier, and was much esteemed
at court for his valor. It was agreed on all hands that the King’s
selection of him for governor of the troubled colony was a very good
one. But results proved it otherwise; and Denonville’s administration
was even more unfortunate than that of La Barre, whose disastrous
reign had brought Canada almost to the brink of ruin. When he arrived
at Quebec in the autumn of 1685, with his wife and a portion of his
family, he found little to cheer him. One hundred and fifty of the
five hundred soldiers who had been sent out to Canada by King Louis
had perished of scurvy while crossing the sea. The colony was in great
disorder; the Iroquois roamed at their pleasure, destroyed when and
whom they pleased, and vented their anger with all the cruelty and
ferocity of their savage nature on such tribes as favored the French.
The Indian allies of the French who had been abandoned by La Barre
had little respect left for the nation whose chief representative had
so badly served them. But now all this would be changed. Denonville
was ordered to ratify the peace with the Iroquois or to declare war,
the alternative being left to his own discretion. The King, who felt
acutely the disgrace of La Barre’s abandonment of the Illinois,
enjoined the new governor to repair that mischief as speedily as
possible, to sustain the friendly tribes, and to humble the Iroquois
at all hazards. A vigorous policy was determined on, and the King had
great faith in the instrument which was to effect it. Denonville was
given especial instructions regarding the English of New York, who at
this time were constantly intriguing with the enemies of New France.
Dongan understood the country well, and was striving with all his
energy to secure control of the valuable fur districts south of the
Great Lakes. To that end he was always in treaty with the Iroquois,
who promised and disregarded their promises as exigency or humor
suited them. The King was fully aware of this, and his instructions of
March 10, 1685, are especially clear on this point. First, the French
ambassador at London, M. Barillon, was desired to demand from the King
of England “precise orders obliging that Governor [Dongan] to confine
himself within the limits of his government, and to observe a different
line of conduct toward Sieur de Denonville, whom his Majesty has chosen
to succeed said Sieur de la Barre.” And Denonville was himself told
that “everything must be done to maintain good understanding between
the French and English; but if the latter, contrary to all appearances,
excite and aid the Indians, they must be treated as enemies when found
on Indian territory, without, at the same time, attempting anything
on territory under the obedience of the King of England.” Meanwhile,
the English were seizing posts in Acadia[700] which had always been
occupied by the French. Denonville was ordered to send to the governor
at Boston to explain the points of boundary, and to request him to
confine himself to his own limits in future. Perrot, the former
governor of Montreal, was now governor of Acadia, and he was instructed
to keep up a correspondence with Denonville, and to take his orders
from him.[701]
The struggle for the supremacy was between Denonville and Dongan.
The latter dared not act as openly as he wished, for his King, being
often at the mercy of Louis, kept saddling him with mandates which he
could not disobey, though they sorely touched his pride. He could,
however, intrigue; and the convenient Iroquois, who found their gain
in the dissensions of the English and French, and who soon learned to
encourage the rivalry between the two white powers encroaching on their
domain, turned listening ears to his words. Louis favored the schemes
of Denonville, which had been formed on a very extensive scale, and
involved the mastery of the most fruitful part of the entire continent.
New York had at this time about 18,000 inhabitants; Canada’s population
was 12,263; but while the latter people were united in furthering
French aims, the inhabitants of New York, save the active traders
of the colony who were concerned in the purchase of peltries, took
very little interest in Dongan’s plans. The English colonies were all
deeply interested in checking French advancement, but they declined to
help the government of New York, and Dongan was forced to fight his
battles single-handed. His king furnished him neither money nor troops;
but the assistance rendered, though sometimes in a negative sense,
by the Iroquois league, was often formidable enough, and served his
purpose on occasion. On the part of Denonville there were, of course,
counter-intrigues. Through Lamberville he distributed presents to the
Iroquois, and Engelran spent many days at Michillimackinac trying to
stay the Hurons, Ottawas, and other lake tribes from allying themselves
with the English, as they threatened to do. It was clear that a bold
stroke must be made to keep these hitherto friendly tribes on the side
of the French, and the only means which seemed to be open was war with
the Iroquois. The latter were also intriguing with their old enemies,
and trying to make treaties independently of the French. The _coureurs
de bois_, too, were a source of danger and annoyance. La Barre had not
kept them in check, and Denonville speedily discovered that they acted
as though they regarded the edicts of the King as so much waste paper.
It was impossible to prevent their selling brandy to the Indians, and
demoralizing and debauching the tribes. Denonville wrote for more
troops, and seemed anxious to deal a decisive blow at the Iroquois.
Affairs were in a deplorable state, and nothing short of a stalwart
exhibition of French power would save the country. “Nothing can save
us,” wrote the Governor, “but the sending out of troops and the
building of forts and blockhouses. Yet I dare not begin to build them;
for if I do, it will bring down all the Iroquois upon us before we are
in a condition to fight them.”
A brisk correspondence sprang up between the Governor of New York and
Denonville. At first it was polite and complimentary, but ere long it
assumed a sterner character, and strong language was employed on both
sides. A good deal of fencing was indulged in. There were charges and
countercharges. Each blamed the other for keeping bad faith, and each
side made every effort to out-manœuvre the other. Denonville saw with
military prescience that forts would be of service at several important
points. One of these sites was situate on the straits of Detroit, and
he hastened to send Du Lhut with fifty men to occupy it. The active
woodsman promptly built a stockade at the outlet of Lake Huron, on the
western side of the strait, and paused there for a while. News reached
Denonville that Dongan contemplated sending, early in the spring
of 1687, an armed expedition in the direction of Michillimackinac
to forestall the trade there. He complained to the Governor of New
York, and advised the King about it. To Du Lhut he issued orders to
shoot down the intruders so soon as they presented themselves. Dongan
dissembled until he heard from England, when he altered his tone,
and wrote a letter much subdued in temper to Denonville. The French
Governor replied, and counselled harmony.
Intelligence from the north reached Denonville about this time, which
gave him considerable satisfaction. The French had resolved in the
spring of 1686 to assert their right to the territory of Hudson’s
Bay. An English Company had established a post at the mouth of Nelson
River, on the west, and on the southern end there were situate forts
Albany, Hayes, and Rupert, each garrisoned by a few men. The rival of
this Company was the Company of the North, a Canadian institution,
which held a grant from Louis XIV. The French had decided to expel the
English from their posts, and Denonville approved the plan, and sent
Chevalier de Troyes with a band of eighty men to assist the Company.
Forts Hayes and Rupert were assaulted at night. In each instance the
attack was a surprise, and the posts readily fell into the hands
of the invaders. Several of the English were killed, others were
wounded, and the rest were made prisoners. Iberville attacked a vessel
anchored near the fort; three of its defenders were killed, and others,
including Bridger, the governor for the Company, were captured. At Fort
Albany, which was garrisoned by thirty men, a stouter resistance was
offered, but at the end of an hour it was silenced, and shared the fate
of its fellows.
Meanwhile, a treaty of neutrality had been signed at Whitehall, and
there was peace between England and France for a time. The document
bears date Nov. 16, 1686. On Jan. 22, 1687, instructions were sent to
Governor Dongan to maintain friendly relations with Denonville, and to
give him no cause for complaint. The King of France delayed despatching
his orders to Canada until four months had elapsed.
[Illustration]
Denonville was ordered to punish the Iroquois. He had eight hundred
regulars, and a further contingent of eight hundred men were promised
in the spring. Abundant means, too, had been provided; namely, 168,000
livres in money and supplies. Denonville was in high feather, and
everything turned in his favor for a time. He had got rid of his
meddling Intendant, Meules, and a pious man like himself had been sent
in his place. This was Champigny. The Bishop, St. Vallier, had only
words of praise for the administration as it then stood: Church and
State were in perfect harmony at last. The attack on the Iroquois towns
was well planned, and every precaution was observed to keep the matter
secret until the time for action had arrived. Dongan, however, learned
the truth from straggling deserters, and he was not slow in informing
the Iroquois of the warlike designs of the French.
Denonville’s plan was to proceed to the Senecas, the strongest
castle and the nearest to Niagara, his course taking him along the
southern shore, which he elected on account of certain advantages
which it possessed over the northern side. The little army moved
out from Montreal on its career of conquest June 13, 1687. After
some difficulty, Fort Frontenac was reached. Champigny and his men
had arrived a few days in advance of the main army; and through his
exertions thirty men and ninety women and children of a peaceable tribe
belonging to the Iroquois and living in the neighborhood, were decoyed
into the fort under the pretence of being feasted, and treacherously
captured. Other Indians were taken in the same way, many of whom were
afterward consigned to the French galleys. The Iroquois were more
chivalrous. They had Lamberville, the Jesuit missionary whom Denonville
had basely left to his fate, in their power, and could easily have
destroyed him, but they allowed him to go free and join his friends.
At the fort there were assembled, according to Denonville, about two
thousand men, regulars, militia, and Indians. Eight hundred troops,
newly arrived from France, had been left at Montreal to protect the
settlers and property there. More allies were awaiting his commands at
Niagara; they consisted of one hundred and eighty Frenchmen, and four
hundred Indians, under Tonty, La Durantaye, and Du Lhut. The journey to
Niagara had not been made without hardship and adventure. The Indians
of the party had been difficult to manage, and for a while Durantaye
was not sure that they would remain with him. Some of the English
traders, commanded by Johannes Rooseboom, a Dutchman, on the way to
Michillimackinac with goods, were encountered, and Durantaye hastened
with one hundred and twenty _coureurs de bois_ to meet them. The party,
consisting of twenty-nine whites and five Mohawks and Mohicans, were
threatened with death if they resisted. They immediately surrendered,
and were despatched to Michillimackinac as prisoners. The merchandise
they brought was parcelled out among the Indians. This stroke was the
means of saving Durantaye’s life, and the Indians with him became in
consequence his sure allies. While making for Niagara, McGregory’s
canoes were met, and the same fate overtook them. This capture
proved important, for McGregory had with him a number of Ottawa and
Huron prisoners whom the Iroquois had taken. It was the Englishman’s
intention to restore these captives to their countrymen, to make
good the terms of the triple alliance which had been entered into by
the English, the Iroquois, and the lake tribes. McGregory’s capture
destroyed the whole arrangement, and he and his companions, with those
of Rooseboom, were ultimately sent as prisoners to Quebec.
The war-party at Niagara were ordered to repair to the rendezvous at
Irondequoit Bay, on the border of the Seneca country, and Denonville
went to meet them. His command numbered three thousand men, for a
reinforcement of Ottawas of Michillimackinac who had refused to follow
Durantaye, having altered their minds, now joined the party. The host
was well officered. The leaders were Denonville, the Chevalier de
Vaudreuil,—an excellent soldier, fresh from France,—La Durantaye,
Callières, Du Lhut, Tonty, Berthier, La Valterie, Granville, Longueil,
La Hontan, De Troyes, and others. On the afternoon of the 12th of
July, at three o’clock, having already despatched four hundred men to
garrison the redoubt, which had been put in a condition of defence for
the protection of the provisions and canoes, Denonville began his march
across the woods to Gannagaro,—twenty-two miles distant. Each man
carried with him food for thirteen days. Three leagues were made the
first day, and the party camped for the night. Two defiles were passed
the next morning. The heat was intense, and the mosquitoes were very
troublesome, but the men moved on in pretty fair order. So far, only a
few scouts of the enemy had been encountered. At two o’clock the third
defile was entered. It had been the Governor’s intention to rest here,
but having been notified by scouts that a considerable party of the
Senecas was in the neighborhood, an advance was made by Callières, who
was at the head of the three companies commanded by Tonty, Durantaye,
and Du Lhut, besides the detachment of Indians. This body, which
formed the vanguard of the army, pushed rapidly through the defile,
unconscious of the fact that an ambuscade of Senecas, three hundred
strong, was posted in the vicinity. When they reached the end they came
upon a thicket of alders and rank grass. At a given signal, the air
was rent with defiant shouts, and a host of savages leaped from their
places of concealment, and sent a volley of lead into the bewildered
French, while the three hundred Senecas who lined the sides of the
defile sprang upon the van. They had thought to crush their enemy at a
blow, but Denonville, hurrying up with his sixteen hundred men, soon
spread consternation into their ranks. The firing was heavy on both
sides; but the Senecas were defeated with considerable slaughter, and
finally fled from the scene in dismay. Denonville wrote that “all our
Christian Indians from below performed their duty admirably, and firmly
maintained the position assigned to them on the left.” The French did
not follow the flying savages, being too much fatigued by their long
march. Their loss was five or six men killed and twenty wounded. Among
the latter was Father Engelran, who was seriously injured by a bullet.
[Illustration]
The next morning the army pressed forward again, but no Seneca warriors
were to be seen. The villages were deserted, and ten days were occupied
by the soldiers and their allies in reducing the Indian villages and
destroying the provisions and stores which the Senecas had left behind
them. Denonville withdrew on the 24th with his army, and set out for
Montreal. On the way back he ordered a stockade to be built at Niagara,
on the site of La Salle’s old fort, between the River Niagara and Lake
Ontario. Montreal was reached on the 13th of August.[702]
Denonville thought that he had made a successful stroke; but he was
over sanguine. After this his power seemed to wane, and his prestige
went down. Dongan was savage when he heard of the imprisonment of
McGregory and Rooseboom, and wrote a sharp letter demanding their
return. Denonville refused, and upbraided him for having assisted the
savages. He thought better of his resolution as his anger cooled,
however, and in a few weeks released his prisoners.
Dongan called a conference of the Iroquois, and told them to receive
no more Jesuit missionaries into their towns. He called them British
subjects, and said that they should make no treaties with the French
without asking leave of King James. The humbled Indians promised
obedience.
Hitherto, Dongan had not succeeded in getting his king to recognize the
Iroquois as his subjects. On the 10th of November, 1687, however, a
warrant arrived from England authorizing the Governor to protect the
Five Nations, and to repel the French from their territory by force
of arms, should they attack the villages again. The commissioners
appointed, in accordance with the terms of the neutrality treaty signed
at Whitehall, had the boundary question before them. Both French and
English claimed the Iroquois, and the matter was assuming a serious
aspect. News came in August, 1688, to Denonville, that the subject of
dispute would receive prompt and satisfactory settlement.[703]
Meanwhile, the French Governor made several overtures to obtain peace
with the Iroquois; but their demands were greater than his pride could
grant. Dongan’s hand was seen in every proposition formulated by the
savages. Father Vaillant was sent to Albany to try and obtain easier
conditions, but the effort was vain; and the Iroquois absolutely
refused to make peace or grant a truce until Fort Niagara was razed,
and all the prisoners restored. These terms were exasperating; but
when Denonville learned that Dongan had been recalled by King James,
his spirits rose, and he felt as if a great load were removed. The
governments of New York, New Jersey, and New England became one
administration, and Sir Edmund Andros was named governor over all. So
far as Denonville was concerned, he was no better off than before,
for the new Governor insisted on all of Dongan’s old demands being
satisfied, and actually forbade peace with the Iroquois on any other
basis.
The state of Canada at this time, 1688, was most deplorable. Disease
had broken out, and the mortality was fearful. Before spring, ten
only, out of a garrison of one hundred men at Niagara, survived the
scourge. The provisions had become bad, and prowling Senecas prevented
any of the inmates of the fort from venturing out to look for food.
Fort Frontenac’s garrison was also sadly diminished, and the distress
throughout the country, from famine and disease, was very great. To
add to the Governor’s troubles, the fur-trade had languished. Bands of
Iroquois menaced the unfortunate settlers. The fields were untilled;
danger lurked in every bush, and destitution, gaunt and grim, abounded
everywhere. Peace must be had at any price, if the colony would live,
and Denonville resolved to make it. He had become unmanned by his
trials, and though he still had a force of fourteen hundred regulars,
some militia, and three or four hundred Indian converts, he hesitated
to venture on war. He wrote to the Court for eight hundred more troops,
and the King sent him three hundred. Then he made up his mind to fight.
He planned a campaign against the Iroquois which he hoped would break
their power. He proposed to divide his army into two sections, with one
of which he might crush the Onondagas and Cayugas, and with the other
the Mohawks and Oneidas. He asked the King for four thousand troops,
and the Bishop backed his demand with an earnest prayer; but France
could not spare them, and the Governor was left to his own resources.
He fell back on the arts of the diplomat, and invited the wily old
chief Big Mouth, to a council at Montreal. The savage consented to
come, despite his promises to the English, and presently he appeared
before Denonville at the head of twelve hundred warriors. He addressed
the Marquis haughtily, and said that he would make peace with the
French, but the terms would not include their allies: the Iroquois must
be left free to attack them when and how they would. Denonville, like
De la Barre on a former occasion, dared not refuse, and the red allies
of the Governor were again abandoned to their fate. A declaration of
neutrality was drawn up June 15, 1688, and Big Mouth promised that
deputies from the whole Confederacy should proceed to Montreal and sign
a general peace.
A chief of the Hurons named Kondiaronk, or the Rat, heard of the treaty
about to be made. Should it be ratified, it meant the destruction of
his own tribe. He took steps to prevent it, and with a band of trusty
savages intercepted the Iroquois deputies on their way to Montreal, at
La Famine, and attacked them. One chief was killed, a warrior escaped
with a broken arm, and the rest were wounded and taken prisoners. The
Rat told his captives that Denonville had informed him that they were
to pass that way, and when the captives replied that they were envoys
of peace, the crafty Huron assumed an injured air, liberated them all
save one, and giving them guns and ammunition, told them to go back to
their people, and avenge the treachery of the French. They departed,
breathing vengeance against Onontio. The wounded Iroquois who had
been in the _mêlée_ escaped, however, learned a different story at
Fort Frontenac, where he was well received, and hastened to Onondaga
charged with explanations. The Iroquois pretended to be satisfied, and
Denonville believed them; but ere long he was terribly undeceived. From
one pretext and another, the treaty was not signed.
And now occurred one of the direst and blackest tragedies in the
annals of New France. During the night and morning of the 4th and 5th
of August, 1689, some fourteen or fifteen hundred Iroquois landed at
Lachine. A tempest was raging at the time, and taking advantage of the
storm and the darkness, they crept noiselessly up to the houses of the
sleeping settlers, and, yelling their piercing war-whoop, fell upon
their defenceless and surprised victims. The houses were fired, and
the massacre of the inmates which followed was swift and frightful.
Few escaped; men, women, and children were indiscriminately slain in
cold blood. It is estimated that more than two hundred persons were
butchered outright, and one hundred and twenty were carried off as
prisoners and reserved for a fate worse than death. Women were impaled,
children roasted by slow fires, and other horrors were perpetrated.
Three stockade forts, Rémy, Roland, and La Présentation, respectably
garrisoned, were situate in the vicinity of this bloody deed. Two
hundred regular troops were encamped less than three miles away. Their
officer, Subercase, was at the time in Montreal, some six miles from
his command. A fugitive from the massacre alarmed the soldiers, and
then fled to Montreal with his terrible news. Flying victims of the
tragedy were seen at intervals pursued by Iroquois, but the presence
of the file of soldiers prevented them from following up their prey.
It was far into the day when Subercase returned, breathless, from
Montreal. He hastily ordered his troops to push on, and, reinforced
by one hundred armed settlers and several men from the forts, marched
towards the encampment of the Indians. Most of the latter were
helplessly drunk by this time, and Subercase could have killed many of
them easily; but just as he was about to strike, Chevalier de Vaudreuil
appeared upon the scene, and by orders of Denonville commanded the
gallant officer to stand solely on the defensive. In vain Subercase
protested; but the orders of his superior could not be gainsaid. The
troops were marched back to Fort Roland, a great opportunity for
revenge was lost, and the fatal pause cost the French very dearly. The
next day the savages were early on the alert. Eighty men hurrying from
Fort Rémy to join Vaudreuil were cut to pieces, and only Le Moyne, De
Longueil, and a few others succeeded in making their way through the
gate of the fort which they had just abandoned. The Indians continued
their fiendish work. They burned all the houses and barns within an
area of nine miles, and pillaged and scalped, without opposition,
within a circle of twenty miles. The miserable policy of Denonville
completely paralyzed the troops and inhabitants, and they allowed
the Iroquois to remain in the neighborhood until they had surfeited
themselves with slaughter, though with a little determined effort they
could readily have driven them off. At length the savages withdrew of
their own accord, and as they passed the forts they called out loud
enough for the inmates to hear, “Onontio, you deceived us, and now we
have deceived you.”
Other troubles overtook the colony: the rebellion broke out in England;
war was declared between Britain and France, in the midst of which
Denonville was recalled, and brave, chivalrous Frontenac, now in his
seventieth year, crossed the seas again, his past conduct forgiven by
King Louis, to administer for a second time the affairs of Canada.
It was in the autumn of 1689, and by evening, that Frontenac was
received at Quebec with fireworks and jubilations. His passage had been
long, and the season was too far advanced to render it practicable to
organize an attack on New York by sea and land, in accordance with
secret instructions which he had received on leaving France;[704] so
the condition of affairs in Canada at once engaged his attention.
These were far from cheerful. Frontenac hastened to Montreal, only
to meet the garrison of Fort Frontenac, which had abandoned and
partially destroyed the works, and were withdrawing under Denonville’s
orders. In every direction the settlements were in terror of the
stealthy Iroquois; and even the tribes of the lakes, having found
under Denonville’s policy that little dependence could be placed in
the support of the French, were showing signs of revolt. Frontenac
had induced a council of the Iroquois; but his proposition for peace
was only met by the revelation of their alliance with the tribes of
Michillimackinac. The French Governor acted promptly: he despatched
a force, accompanied by the astute Nicholas Perrot, to endeavor to
prevent any overt act on the part of the Ottawas.
Meanwhile, to punish the English and to impress the savages, Frontenac
sent out three expeditions. The first, from Montreal, fell suddenly
upon Schenectady, then the farthest outpost of the English in New
York, and perpetrated a fearful massacre. The invaders retired, not
without pursuit, leaving some prisoners in the hands of the English,
who learned from them that Frontenac designed to make a more formidable
attack in the spring. Schuyler, of Albany, appealed to Massachusetts
for help; but the New England colonies soon had a sharper appeal for
their own defence. Towards the end of January, Frontenac’s second
expedition had left Three Rivers, and two months later it fell suddenly
upon Salmon Falls, a settlement on the river dividing Maine from New
Hampshire, where the force plundered and killed whom they could, and
retreated so as to intercept and join the third of the French parties,
which had left Quebec in January, and was now on its way to attack
Fort Loyal, at the present Portland. After a vigorous resistance,
Captain Sylvanus Davis, a Massachusetts man, who commanded the English,
surrendered that post upon terms which were not kept. Murder and rapine
followed, as in the other cases, while Davis and some others were led
captive to Canada. Frontenac received the New Englander kindly, who was
still in his power when another and more famous New Englander appeared
before Quebec with a fleet, in pursuance of a part of a plan of attack
on New France which the English were now bent on making in retaliation.
At a congress in May, 1690, held in New York, the scheme was arranged.
A land force under Fitz-John Winthrop was to march from Albany to
Montreal. It fell (as we shall see) by the way, and disappeared. A
sea-force was to sail from Boston and attack Quebec at the same time.
This for a while promised better.
During the previous year the Boston merchants had lost ships and
cargoes by French cruisers, which harbored at Port Royal.[705] Another
chapter tells the story of the reprisals which the aroused New
Englanders made, and how Sir William Phips had returned with captives
and booty to Boston, just after the Massachusetts Government had
begun to make preparations to carry out their part of the campaign as
planned in New York. There is no test of soldiership like success,
and the adventitious results of the Port Royal expedition stood with
the over-confident and unthinking for much more than they signified,
and Phips of course was put in command of the new Armada. Money
was borrowed, for recurrent frontier wars had drained the colonial
treasuries. England was appealed to; but she refused even to contribute
munitions of war. So with a bluff and coarse adventurer for a general,
with a Cape Cod militia-man in John Walley as his lieutenant, with
a motley force of twenty-two hundred men crowded in thirty-two
extemporized war-ships, and with a scant supply of ammunition, the
fleet left Boston Harbor in August, 1690.
Meanwhile Frontenac at Quebec had, during the winter, been
constructing palisades in front of the inland side of the upper
town, and leaving the work to go on, had gone up in the early
summer to Montreal, to be elated by the arrival of a large fleet
of canoes bringing furs from the upper lakes. All this indicated
to Frontenac that his policy of reclaiming to the French interest
the tribes about Michillimackinac was working successfully, and
he rejoiced. While here, however, he got news of Winthrop’s force
coming down Lake Champlain. It turned out that the English did nothing
more than to frighten him a little by the sudden onset of a scouting
party under John Schuyler, which fell upon the settlement at La
Prairie, and then vanished.
Suddenly again word came of a rumor of a fleet having sailed from
Boston to attack Quebec. Frontenac made haste to return to that town,
and was met on the way by more definite intelligence of the New England
fleet having been seen in the river. When he reached Quebec, not a
hostile sail was in sight. He was in time, and his messengers were
already summoning assistance from all distant posts.
In coming up the river, Phips had captured two vessels, so that the
fleet which two or three days after Frontenac’s arrival slowly emerged
into the basin of Quebec counted thirty-four vessels to the anxious
eyes of the French. Phips’s prisoners had told him that there were not
two hundred men in the works; Frontenac knew that his reinforcements
had already made his garrison about twenty-seven hundred men.
Phips promptly sent a summons to surrender. His messenger was
blindfolded and tumbled about over the barricades, to impress him with
the preparations of defence. Frontenac disdained to take the offered
hour for consideration, and sent back his refusal at once. Phips
dallied with councils of war till he heard the acclamations with which
the Governor of Montreal was received, when he brought several hundred
additional men to the garrison. Walley was at last landed with a force
of twelve or thirteen hundred, who experienced some fighting, which
they conducted courageously enough, but without result, and suffered
much from the inclemency of the weather. Without waiting for the land
troops to reach a position for assaulting the town, Phips moved up
his ships, and began a bombardment, wholly ineffectual, and drew a
return which damaged him so considerably, that, after renewing it
the following day, he finally drew off. There was another delay in
rescuing Walley and his men, who were at last re-embarked under cover
of the night. The fleet now fell down the river, stopped to repair,
and then made their way back to Boston, straggling along for several
months, some of the vessels never reaching home at all. The miseries of
mortification and paper money were all that New England had to show for
her bravado.[706]
[Illustration: ATTACK ON QUEBEC.]
To Frontenac the success of his defence was a temporary relief, so
far as the English were concerned, though the New England cruisers
continued to intercept his supplies in the Gulf. But the Iroquois
wolves began to prowl again. Taunted by their savage allies for their
inertness, the English and Dutch of Albany once more raided towards
Montreal, under Peter Schuyler, and, inflicting more damage than they
received, successfully broke through an ambuscading force on their
retreat. All this irritated Frontenac. He prayed his King for help
to destroy New York and Boston; and when a false report reached him
that ten thousand “Bastonnais” had sailed to wreak their revenge for
Phips’s failure, he set vigorously to work strengthening the vulnerable
points of his colony. He varied his activity with continued expeditions
against the Iroquois, whether strolling or at home, striking
particularly against the Mohawk towns; and he protected a great fleet
of canoes which in the troublous times had been kept back in the upper
country, and now brought credit and hope to the lower settlements in an
ample supply of furs.
But during all this turmoil with public foes, Frontenac was having his
old troubles over again with the Bishop and the Intendant. Outward
courtesy and secret dislike characterized their intercourse, and
discord went in the train of the Bishop as he made his pastoral tours
among a people bound in honor and reverence to the Governor.
The reader must turn to another page[707] for the struggle with the
“Bastonnais” which Frontenac was watching meanwhile in Acadia; but
this did not divert his attention from the grand castigation which
at last he was planning for the Iroquois. He had succeeded, in 1694,
in inducing them to meet him in general council at Quebec, and had
framed the conditions of a truce; but the English at Albany intrigued
to prevent the fulfilment, and war was again imminent. Both sides
were endeavoring to secure the alliance of the tribes of the upper
lakes.[708] These wavered, and Frontenac saw the peril and the remedy.
His recourse was to attack the Iroquois in their villages at once,
and conquer on the Mohawk the peace he needed at Michillimackinac. It
was Frontenac’s last campaign. In July, 1696, he left Montreal with
twenty-two hundred men. He went by way of Fort Frontenac, crossed Lake
Ontario, landed at Oswego, and struggled up its stream, and at last set
sails to his canoes on Lake Onondaga. Then his force marched again, and
Frontenac, enfeebled by his years, was borne along in an arm-chair.
Eight or nine miles and a day’s work brought them to the Onondagas’
village; but its inhabitants had burned it and fled. Vaudreuil was
sent with a detachment, which destroyed the town of the Oneidas. After
committing all the devastation of crops that he could, in hopes that
famine would help him, Frontenac began his homeward march before the
English at Albany were aroused at all. The effect was what Frontenac
wished. The Iroquois ceased their negotiations with the western tribes,
and sued for peace.
Meanwhile the crowns and diplomats of England and France had concluded
the Peace of Ryswick in 1697. Frontenac got word of it from New York as
early as February of 1698, and a confirmation from Louis in July. There
were still some parries of diplomacy between the old French soldier and
the English governor at New York, the Earl of Bellomont, each trying
to maintain the show of a paramount authority over the Five Nations.
But Frontenac was not destined to see the end. In November he sickened.
His adversary, Champigny, mollified at the sight, became reconciled to
him, and soothed his last hours. On the twenty-eighth he died, in the
seventy-eighth year of his age, and New France sincerely mourned her
most distinguished hero.
* * * * *
CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.
A LARGE portion of the manuscript sources of this chapter may be found
in the invaluable collection of papers relating to New France in the
Archives of the Marine and Colonies, the Archives Nationales, and the
Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris; and in the office of the Provincial
Registrar at Quebec. The archives of New York, Massachusetts, and
Canada have made extensive transcripts from these documents, as
follows:—
1. _Correspondance Officiele_, first series, vols. i.-v. There are
transcripts from the Paris documents copied in France for the State
of New York, and translations of them all are in the ninth and tenth
volumes of the _Documents relating to the Colonial History of the State
of New York_.[709]
2. _Correspondance Officiele_, second series, vols. ii., iv.-viii.
These papers exist in manuscript, and have not been translated into
English. Copies are in the Library of Parliament, Ottawa, and in the
Archives Office of the Quebec Government.
3. A collection of papers made by an agent of Massachusetts at Paris,
relating chiefly to Acadian matters, contains also a good deal about
Frontenac. They were copied afterward in Boston on an order from the
Quebec Government, and are in the keeping of the Registrar at Quebec.
The Quebec administration intends publishing these papers.[710] [They
have since been published.]
The original Register and Proceedings of Council, in several volumes,
remain in very fair condition in the archives of the Quebec Government.
The first, a folio bound in calf and indexed, bears two titles, the
first of which is, _Registre des Insinuations du Conseil Supérieur
de 1663 à 1682_, ninety-six pages. It begins with the King’s edict
creating the Superior Council, dated April 1, 1663, and ends with the
“Procès Verbal” of the Superior Council concerning the _Redaction_ of
the _Code Civil_, or ordinance of Louis, April 14, 1667.
The second title is, _Jugements et Délibérations du Conseil Souverain
de la Nouvelle France, 1663 à 1676_, two hundred and eighty-one
pages. It begins with an _arrêt_ of the Superior Council ordering
the registration of the King’s edict of April 1, 1663, creating the
Superior Council for New France, to be held at Quebec; and ends with
an interlocutory judgment, dated Dec. 19, 1676, upon a petition of
François Noir Roland, complaining of his curate for refusing him
absolution. This book, or register, is authenticated by the certificate
of the Governor, Comte de Frontenac, on the first page, as follows:—
“Le Présent Régîstre du Conseil Souverain contenant trois cens
soixante et seize feuillets a été ce jour paraphé _ne varietur_ par
premier et dernier, par nous Louis de Buade de Frontenac Chevallier
Comte de Palluau, Conseiller du Roy en ses Conseils, Gouverneur et
Intendant Général pour sa Majesté, en la Nouvelle France, Québec le
quinzième Janvier Mille six cents soixante et quinze.”
“FRONTENAC.”
The entries in general throughout this end of the book are
authenticated by the Governor, Bishop, Intendant, councillors, or Clerk
of the Council; and the last, or two hundred and eighty-first leaf, is
signed by Duchesneau, Intendant, and by Dupont, Member of the Council.
Its general contents consist of a variety of orders, regulations,
ordinances, judgments, civil and criminal, of the Superior Council,
licitation, and adjudications of Crown estates, representations to the
King and his ministers upon various subjects. There are four following
volumes of this register in the archives at Quebec bearing the dates
1677 to 1680, 1681, 1681 to 1687, and 1688 to 1693, respectively. Each
of these contains interesting details of Council proceedings during the
first administration of Frontenac, the time of La Barre and Denonville,
and during Frontenac’s second term.
The _Édits et Ordonnances_, vol. iii., contain copies of the
commissions of Frontenac, La Barre, and Denonville.
For particulars concerning the youth of Frontenac, his family and
marriage, see Parkman’s Appendix, where, among other sources, are
named the journal of Jean Héroard, physician to the court, part of
which is cited in _Le Correspondant_ of Paris for 1873; Pinard,
_Chronologie Historique-Militaire_; _Les Mémoires de Sully_; _Table de
la Gazette de France_; _Mémoires de Philippe Hurault_ (in Petitot);
Jal, _Dictionnaire Critique_, _Biographique, et d’Histoire_, article,
“Frontenac;” _Historiettes de Tallemant des Réaux, ix._ (ed.
Monmerqué); _Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier_, vols. i.-iii.;
and _Mémoires du Duc de Saint-Simon_.[711]
At Frontenac’s death we have an _Oraison funèbre du Comte de Frontenac,
par le Père Olivier Goyer_, preached from the text: “In multitudine
videbor bonus et in bello fortis.” A copy of this eulogy, containing
a running commentary on its sentiments strongly adverse to the views
of the orator, is preserved in the Seminary of Quebec. These comments,
selections from which will be found in Parkman’s _Count Frontenac and
New France under Louis XIV._, pp. 431-434, are, the Abbé Casgrain
informs me, from the caustic pen of the Abbé Charles Glandelet, who
came to Canada in 1675, and labored half a century in the Seminary. He
was first theologian, superior, and confessor of the Ursulines, and
died at Three Rivers at the advanced age of eighty years.
In considering the early printed books pertaining to our subject,
we find them copious; but unfortunately we can scarcely account
many of them trustworthy historical authorities, since prejudice
and partisanship characterize them for the most part. The contests
of the period greatly developed antagonisms, and it was not easy at
the time to resist their influences. When we collate the writings of
these contemporaries, we find a great lack of unity and sympathy,
and this often extends to matters of trifling import. While thus in
many ways these books fail of becoming satisfactory chronicles, as
expressions of current partisan feeling they often throw great light on
all transactions; and it is fortunate that in their antagonisms they
give rival sentiments and opposing narratives, from which the careful
student, with the help of official and other contemporary documents,
may in the main satisfy his mind. Foremost among these early narratives
is the _Premier Établissement de la Foy dans la Nouvelle France_ of the
Père Le Clercq: of this, however, as well as of the works of Hennepin
and La Hontan, Tonti, and Marquette, an examination is made in another
chapter.[712]
Of the more general early narratives, we must give a prominent place
to a book which ranks as a respectable authority, and is frequently
quoted,—Bacqueville de la Potherie’s _Histoire de l’Amérique
Septentrionale depuis 1534 jusqu’à 1701_, Paris, 1722, four volumes.
It is particularly useful in studying the relations of Frontenac and
Callières, but as a contribution upon the condition of the Indians at
that time it has its chief value.[713]
The _Histoire du Canada_ of the Abbé Belmont, superior of the Seminary
of Montreal during 1713 and 1724, is a short history of affairs from
1608 to 1700. The Literary and Historical Society of Quebec printed,
about 1840, in their _Collection de Mémoires_, a small edition of
the work from a manuscript copy in the Bibliothèque Nationale of
Paris. It is very scarce, and copies are held at high prices, but the
Society intend reissuing it shortly. Its general accuracy has not
been questioned, and the views expressed are evidently the outcome of
careful consideration.
The general history of the administrations of Frontenac, De la Barre,
and Denonville is exhaustively treated by Father Francis-Xavier de
Charlevoix; and the first place in time and importance among the
contributions to the general history of Canada, of a date earlier
than the present century, must be given to this Jesuit’s _Histoire et
Description Générale de la Nouvelle France, avec le Journal Historique
d’un Voyage fait par l’Ordre du Roi dans l’Amérique Septentrionale_,
which was issued at Paris in 1744.[714] Shea says: “Access to State
papers and the archives of the religious order to which he belonged,
experience and skill as a practised writer, a clear head and an ability
to analyze, arrange, and describe, fitted him for his work.” Parkman,
whose studies have made him a close observer of Charlevoix’s methods,
speaks of his “usual carelessness.”
Charlevoix arrived in Canada in September, 1720, on an expedition
to inspect the missions of Canada. His purpose took him throughout
the limits of New France and Louisiana, and by the Illinois and
the Mississippi to the Gulf. His work is commensurate with his
opportunities; his faults and errors were those of his order; and his
religious training inclined him to give perhaps undue prominence to
the ecclesiastical side of his subject; and though the character of
Frontenac suffers but little at his hands, some of the prejudice which
Charlevoix bestows upon the Recollects necessarily colors his judgment
in matters where the Governor came in contact with the Jesuits.
The Abbé La Tour, not a very trustworthy authority, wrote _Mémoires sur
la Vie de M. de Laval, premier Évêque de Québec_ in 1761,—a small book
which is worth looking into, though not with the object of accepting
all its statements. Frontenac is bitterly attacked, his faults
magnified, and many serious charges are preferred against him. But one
volume, however, was published,—a thin book of a few pages, bearing
the imprint of Jean Frederick Motiens, Cologne, 1761. The second
volume was never printed. The copy of vol. i. which the Abbé Vemey
possessed has this note in the latter’s handwriting: “L’Abbé de la Tour
de Montauban, author of this Life, of which the first volume only has
been published, promised me a manuscript copy of the second volume; but
he did not keep his word. Owing to the unfair manner in which Bishop
St. Vallier was treated in the second volume, his family objected to
its publication.” The first volume ends with the year 1694. A second
edition was published at Paris in 1762.[715]
A useful work, which should not be lost sight of in the consideration
of this period, is _L’Histoire de l’Hôtel Dieu de Québec, de 1639 à
1716_, by the reverend mother, Françoise Juchereau de St. Ignace,
printed in Paris in 1751. It is rich in facts and incidents, and
especially valuable as an authority on the missionary activity of the
time, and on the attempt made by the clergy to evangelize the savages.
A supplementary work, prepared with great care and thoroughness from
original documents, and bearing the same title, has been written by
the Abbé H. R. Casgrain. It is brought down to 1840, and was published
at Quebec in 1878. The Abbé is one of the most industrious of the
French-Canadian writers, and his book is full of interesting details
and notes.[716]
In the third series of _Historical Documents_ published under the
auspices of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in 1871, is
a paper entitled “Recueil de ce qui s’est passé en Canada au sujet de
la guerre, tant des Anglais que des Iroquois, depuis l’année 1682.”
It contains a good account of the Lachine massacre, the truthfulness
of which may be accepted. The author accompanied Subercase to the
scene.[717]
In a collection entitled, _Bibliotheca Americana: Collection d’ouvrages
inédits ou rares sur l’Amérique_, with the imprint of Leipsic and
Paris, appeared the _Mémoire sur les Mœurs, Coustumes, et Réligions
des Sauvages de l’Amérique Septentrionale, par Nicolas Perrot, publié
pour la première fois par le R. P. Tailhan, de la Compagnie de
Jésus_, 1864. Considerable importance is attached to this memoir by
Charlevoix, La Potherie, Ferland, and others, who frequently quote it
in their narratives. Harrisse (no. 833) says that this work seems to
have been written day by day from 1665 to the death of Perrot, who
was an eye-witness of events under the administration of De la Barre,
Denonville, and Frontenac. Colden gives a part of the narrative in his
_History of the Five Indian Nations_, London, 1747.[718]
It remains to characterize the chief general works of our own time,
which indicate the great interest with which modern research has
invested the story of New France. The French-Canadians generally accept
François-Xavier Garneau as their national historian, and his _Histoire
du Canada_ well entitles him to that consideration. He began writing
his history in 1840, and published the first volume in Quebec in 1845,
the second in 1846, and the third, treating of events down to 1792,
in 1848. A new edition, revised and corrected, and brought down to
1840, appeared at Montreal from Lovell’s press, in 1852, and a third
edition at Quebec in 1859.[719] In 1882 the fourth edition, edited by
his son,[720] was issued at Montreal by Beauchemin & Valois. It is
enriched by many valuable notes, and has a recognized place as a work
of conspicuous merit.
The ecclesiastical history of Canada is particularly illustrated
by the Abbé J. B. A. Ferland in his _Cours d’Histoire du Canada_,
1534-1759, Quebec, 1861 and 1865, two volumes. The author died while
the second volume was passing through the press, and the completing
of the publication devolved upon the Abbé Laverdière, one of the
ablest scholars in the Canadian priesthood. Ferland had access to many
documents of great interest, and his work shows judgment and a skilful
handling of the rich store of materials within his reach.[721]
The _Histoire de la Colonie Française en Canada_, with maps, by the
Abbé Faillon, a Sulpitian priest of very great ability, was projected
on an extensive plan. The author visited Canada on three separate
occasions, spending several years in the country, and made the most of
his opportunities in gathering his material, not only there, but from
the archives of the Propaganda at Rome and from the public offices in
Paris. The result was a work of high value; but it must be read with
a full perception of the author’s intention to rear a monument to
commemorate the labors and trials of the Sulpitians of Montreal.
Parkman[722] thus speaks of him: “In all that relates to Montreal I
cannot be sufficiently grateful to the Abbé Faillon, the indefatigable,
patient, conscientious chronicler of its early history; an ardent and
prejudiced Sulpitian; a priest who three centuries ago would have
passed for credulous, and withal a kind-hearted and estimable man.”
Three volumes only appeared, the first two in 1865, and the third in
1866. The latter deals with events covered by a small portion of the
period discussed in this chapter. M. Faillon’s death at Paris in 1871
prevented further publication; but he has left in manuscript enough
prepared material to complete the work as far as the conquest of
1759-1760. The book was published anonymously, according to the custom
of the Congregation of St. Sulpice.[723]
It is, however, to an American of Puritan stock that the story we
are illustrating owes, for the English reader certainly, its most
conspicuous recital. Two volumes of Francis Parkman’s series of
_France and England in North America_ concern more especially the
period covered by the administrations of Frontenac, De la Barre, and
Denonville; these are his _Frontenac, and New France under Louis XIV._
(Boston, 1877), and his _La Salle, and the Discovery of the Great West_
(Boston, 1879); but the consideration of the last of these belongs more
particularly to another chapter. Of Parkman as an historian there has
been a wide recognition of a learning that has neglected no resource; a
research which has proved fortunate in its results; a judgment which,
though Protestant, is fair and liberal;[724] a critical perception,
which in the conflict of testimony keeps him accurate and luminous;
and a style which has given his narrative the fascinations of a romance.
John Dennis wrote a tragedy,—_Liberty Asserted_,—which was acted
in London in 1704, in which Frontenac was made a character, together
with an English governor and Iroquois chief. Betterton acted in it.
A romantic picture of the period is furnished in an amusing novel by
M. Joseph Marmette, formerly of Quebec, but now of Paris, entitled
_François de Bienville_. Frontenac figures as one of the principal
characters in the story. Frontenac’s expeditions against the Iroquois
were made the subject of a poem by Alfred B. Street,—_Frontenac: or,
the Atotarho of the Iroquois_. London and New York, 1849.
M. T. P. Bedard, of the Archives department, has a paper in the
_Annuaire de l’Institut Canadien_, nos. 7 and 8, 1880, 1881, which
discusses the first and second administrations of the Count, and sheds
some light on the social and political aspects of the country between
1672 and 1698, the year in which Frontenac died.
[Illustration]
EDITORIAL NOTES.
[Illustration: THE QUEBEC MEDAL.
This is engraved from a copy kindly lent by W. S. Appleton, Esq., of
Boston. See _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xi. 296, and Shea’s _Charlevoix_,
iv. 190, and his _Le Clercq_, ii. 329. See the “Historic Medals of
Canada,” in the _Quebec Lit. and Hist. Soc. Transactions_, 1872-1873,
p. 73.]
=A.= FRONTENAC’S SECOND TERM.—Mr. Parkman has accompanied his
narrative[725] of the attempt on Quebec in 1690 with an indication
of the sources of the story. Besides the despatches of Frontenac and
the _Relation_ of Monseignat (both printed in the _New York Colonial
Documents_, vol. ix.), there is an account taken by vessel to Rochelle,
which is without place or date, and was probably there printed. It is
entitled, _Relation de ce qui s’est passé en Canada, à la descente
des Anglais à Québec, au mois d’Octobre, 1690, faite par un Officier_
(Harrisse, no. 168; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,426), and contains
Phips’s summons to Frontenac (also given in Mather’s _Magnalia_, and
repeated by Parkman, _Frontenac_, p. 266), and Frontenac’s verbal
answer.
[Illustration: PLAN OF ATTACK ON QUEBEC, 1690.
Fac-simile of an engraved plan in La Hontan’s _New Voyages_, London,
1703, vol. i. p. 160. It was re-engraved for the French edition of
1705.]
The copy of Phips’s summons sent to Paris by Frontenac is indorsed
by him to the effect that he retained the original. The _Mercure de
France_ also issued an “Extraordinaire,” with an account (Harrisse,
no. 166,) and another brief _Relation de la levée du siége de Québec_
(Harrisse, no. 167) was printed at Tours. La Hontan, Le Clercq,
La Potherie, and Juchereau (_L’Hôtel Dieu_), give other accounts
contemporary, or nearly so, and their testimony has been availed of
by Charlevoix (cf. Shea’s ed., iv. 169) and the later writers, like
Garneau.
[Illustration: ATTACK ON QUEBEC, 1690.
Fac-simile of the engraving in La Hontan’s _Mémoires_, La Haye, 1709,
vol. ii. p. 14. It was re-engraved for the 1715 edition.]
On the English side, besides a contemporary bulletin issued in the
_Publick Occurrences_, Boston, Sept. 25, 1690 (given in _Hist.
Mag._, August, 1857), two participators in the expedition left
narratives,—one of which by John Walley is printed in Hutchinson’s
_Massachusetts_, i. app. no. xxi., which concerns chiefly the land
forces; and the other was by the officer second in command of the
militia, and is entitled, _An account of the late action of the New
Englanders, under the command of Sir William Phips, against the French
at Canada, sent in a letter from Maj. Thomas Savage, of Boston, in
New England_ (_who was present at the action_), _to his brother, Mr.
Perez Savage, in London_. London, 1691. This quarto tract is in Harvard
College Library; it was reprinted in the _Mass. Hist. Coll._, xiii. 256.
[Illustration]
In the same _Collections_, third series, i. 101, is the diary of
Captain Sylvanus Davis, who was at the time a captive in Quebec; cf.
also Johnston’s _Bremen, Bristol, and Pemaquid_. An original journal of
the expedition is said to have been intrusted to Admiral Walker at the
time of his venture in 1711, and to have been lost in one of his ships
(Walker’s _Journal_, p. 87). Phips’s side of the story is doubtless
told amid the high laudation of Cotton Mather’s _Life of Phips_; some
light is thrown upon the times in Dummer’s _Defence of the Colonies_;
and various tokens of the preparations for the expedition are preserved
in the _Hinckley Papers_, vol. iii, in the Prince Library.
[Illustration]
Somewhat later we have the story in some of its aspects in Colden’s
_Five Nations_; later still, in Hutchinson’s _Massachusetts Bay_, vol.
i.; again, in part, in Belknap’s _New Hampshire_; while the chief
modern writers who have preceded Parkman, on the English side, have
been Palfrey’s _New England_, iv. 51; Barry’s _Massachusetts_, ii.
79; Bowen’s “Life of Phips,” in Sparks’ _American Biography_; and
Warburton, in his _Conquest of Canada_, chap. 14.
[Illustration]
Of the supporting Winthrop expedition from Albany, we have the French
accounts in La Potherie (iii. 126), and in the _New York Colonial
Documents_, ix. 513. The recently published _Winthrop Papers_ (iv.
303-324) throw considerable light through the letters of Fitz-John
Winthrop on the preparations which were made; and they give also his
reasons for the expedition’s failure, and through his Journal, with
which the one printed in the _New York Colonial Documents_, iv. 193,
may be compared. Parkman’s _Frontenac_ (p. 257) and Shea’s _Charlevoix_
(iv. 145) note the authorities; and the _New York Colonial Documents_
(iii. 727, 752) and _Doc. Hist. N. Y._ (ii. 266, 288) yield other
light than that already mentioned. The Journal of Schuyler’s raid to
La Prairie is given in the _Doc. Hist. N. Y._, ii. 285, and in the
publications of the New Jersey Historical Society, vol. i.
[Illustration]
Concerning the minor episodes of this second term of Frontenac’s
government, both Parkman and Shea indicate the essential authorities.
On the destruction of Schenectady, the letter of Monseignat and other
papers in the _Doc. Hist. of New York_, vol. i. 297, etc. (where
authorities are cited), and a letter of Schuyler and his associates
in the Massachusetts Archives, printed in the _Andros Tracts_, are
of the first importance. Cf. also M. Van Rennsselaer’s paper in _N.
Y. Hist. Soc. Proc._, 1846, p. 101, and the same Society’s _Fund
Publications_, ii. 165; a letter from Governor Bradstreet, in the _N.
E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, ii. 150; and the contributions in Munsell’s
_Albany_. French accounts are in _Le Clercq_ (Shea’s edition, ii. 292);
_Potherie_, ii. 68; _N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. 466; and English accounts
in Smith’s _New York_, p. 66; Colden’s _Five Nations_ (1727), p. 114.
[Illustration]
On Schuyler’s raid by way of Lake Champlain in 1691, the French side
is still to be gathered from La Potherie, with help from Belmont,
_Histoire du Canada_, and from the _Relation of 1682-1712_, and from
the despatches of Frontenac and Champigny. Schuyler’s own Journal
and other documents, French and English, are in the _N. Y. Colonial
Documents_, vol. iii.; Parkman (p. 294) examines the question of the
number of the forces engaged, and Shea, _Charlevoix_, iv. 202, gives
references.
[Illustration]
On the expedition against the Mohawks, led by Mantet, Courtemanche,
and La Noue, we have more various accounts. Parkman gives a graphic
recital, and his notes show he has used all the sources. The French
authorities, besides the letter of Callières to the home government,
are the _Relation de ce qui s’est passé de plus remarquable en Canada_,
1692-93; the _Relation de ce qui s’est passé en Canada au sujet de la
Guerre_, 1682-1712; while citations of original journals, etc., are
in Faillon’s _Vie de Mdle. Le Ber_, and of course we have La Potherie
(iii. 169) and Belmont. The _N. Y. Col. Docs._, vol. ix., contain
important material, including a “Narrative of Military Operations
in Canada;” and Major Peter Schuyler’s report is in vol. iv. of the
same collection. Colden, in his _Five Nations_, p. 142, wrote while
the actors were still living. There was a tract on the expedition
issued in London the same year, which is of such rarity that the copy
in the Carter-Brown Library (_Catalogue_, vol. ii. no. 1,446, with
fac-simile of title; also Harrisse, no. 171) is the only one known
to me, and from it Sabin, in 1868, reprinted it. It is entitled, _A
Journal of the late actions of the French in Canada, with the manner
of their being repulsed, by his Excellency Benjamin Fletcher, Governor
of New York_, etc. _By Coll. Nicholas Reyard_ [should be Beyard] _and
Lieutenant-Coll. Charles Lodowick._
[Illustration]
The reader must turn to the chapter on Acadia for the authorities
for such other expeditions as come within the alleged limits of that
province and the neighboring English settlements.
[Illustration: A CANADIAN SOLDIER.
This sketch of the costume of a grenadier de St. Louis, Compagnie
canadienne, is taken from the _Mass Archives: Documents Collected in
France_, iii. 3.]
On Frontenac’s last raid,—the attack upon the Onondagas, in 1696,—we
must naturally find our chief information from the French, for the
English at Albany were not ready to advance till the French had done
their work and had gone. Frontenac and Callières each despatched
accounts to Paris; and besides the _Relation_, 1682-1712, already
referred to, we have the _Relation de ce qui s’est passé en Canada_,—a
manuscript preserved in the library of the Literary and Historical
Society of Quebec (see _Parliamentary Library Catalogue_, 1858, p.
1613); the _Relation_, 1696, which Shea has printed, and of course the
accounts in La Potherie, iii. 270, and Charlevoix (Shea adds references
in his edition, vol. v.), and the papers in the _Doc. Hist. of N.
Y._, i. 323, and the _N. Y. Col. Docs._ iv. 342. Parkman’s narrative
(_Frontenac_, chap. xix.) is clearly put and exemplified.
=B.= GENERAL DOCUMENTARY SOURCES OF CANADIAN HISTORY.—Harrisse
prefaces his _Notes pour servir à l’histoire, à la bibliographie
et à la cartographie de la Nouvelle France et des pays adjacents_,
1545-1700, Paris, 1872, with an account of the sources of early
Canadian history, and of the repositories of documentary material in
Paris, etc. He states that the French Government refused access to
their archives to an agent of the Historical Society of Quebec in 1835,
and that a similar refusal was made in 1838; but that in 1842 General
Cass, then United States Minister, succeeded, in behalf of the State
of Michigan, in securing about forty cartons for publication; and ten
years later the Parliament at Quebec obtained copies of documents,
which now (1872) form a series of thirty-six folios,—not embracing,
however, the papers of the early discovery, which were withheld.
Louis P. Turcotte, in his address on _Les Archives du Canada_ (Quebec,
1877), says that the first inventory of the public archives of Canada
was published in 1791; that it shows the subsequent loss of important
documents; that the first steps were taken to procure copies from the
European archives in 1835, which were not successful at the time; and
that the better results made by the State of New York (1841-1844)
were accordingly availed of. In 1845 the Canadian agent, M. Papineau,
secured other copies in France; and in 1851-1852 M. Faribault added
twenty-four volumes of transcripts to the collection, now in the
library at Ottawa; and sixteen volumes have been added since. M.
Turcotte pays a tribute, for his zeal and industry in preserving early
Canadian records, to M. Jacques Viger, whose efforts have been since
supplemented by the labors of l’Abbé Verreau, who has formed a large
library of copies of manuscripts and printed books. M. Verreau was
in 1873 sent by the Canadian Government to Europe to make additional
collections.
The _Catalogue_ of the Library of the Canadian Parliament, made by
Gérin-Lajoie, and published in 1858, gives (p. 1448) an account of the
manuscript collections at that time in the possession of the Canadian
Government at Toronto, and now transferred to Ottawa, and divides them
thus:—
_First series._—Copies of copies made by Brodhead for the State of
New York, from the archives at Paris, seventeen volumes, with six
additional volumes, drawn at second hand in the same way from the
Colonial Office in London. These copies were made before the Brodhead
collection was printed. Kirke, in his _First English Conquest of
Canada_, London, 1871, says: “The papers in the Record Office [London]
relating to Canada, Acadia, or Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland are
numerous and continuous from 1621 to 1660, with the exception of the
period from 1640 to 1649, during which years we find no papers.”
_Second series._—Copies obtained in Paris by Faribault, and made under
Margry’s direction; twelve volumes, giving the official correspondence
of the governors, 1637-1727. These are enumerated in the _Catalogue_.
_Third series._—Copies of official correspondence relative to Canada,
1654-1731; twelve volumes, likewise arranged by Margry, and also
enumerated in the _Catalogue_.
_Fourth series._—A transcript of Franquet’s “Voyages et mémoires sur
le Canada, 1752-53,” and other documents mentioned in the _Catalogue_.
_Fifth series._—Maps, copied by Morin, and enumerated on pp. 1614-21
of the _Catalogue_.
Cf. _Collection de Mémoires et de Relations sur l’histoire ancienne
du Canada, d’après des manuscrits récemment obtenus des archives et
bureaux publics en France_, Quebec, 1840; and the Transactions of the
Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, 1870-71, and 1871-72. The
_Collection_ contains Belmont and the Report attributed to Talon. Cf.
_Magazine of American History_, iii. 458, in the Quebec Society.
The _Lettres, instructions et mémoires de Colbert, publiés par
Clément_, Paris, 1865, vol. iii., second part, contain various
important papers,—like the instructions as intendant of Talon, March
27, 1665; of De Bouteroue, April 5, 1668; Duchesneau, May 30, 1675;
those to Gaudais in 1663, and to Courcelles in 1669: besides letters
to Frontenac, April 7, 1672; June 13, 1673; May 17, 1674; April 22,
1675; May 10, 1677; March 21, 1678; Dec. 4, 1679; April 30, 1681 (pp.
533, 557, 574, 585, 594, 622, 631, 641, 644): others to Talon, Feb.
11, 1671; June 4, 1672 (pp. 511, 539); to Duchesneau, April 15, 1676;
April 28, 1677; May 1, 1677; May 15 and 24, 1678; April 30, 1679 (pp.
605, 614, 619, 632, 635, 638); with one to l’Évêque de Petrée, May 15,
1669 (p. 451). Margry (i. 247) gives some of the correspondence of
Frontenac and Colbert, 1672-1674, relative to the pushing of Recollect
missionaries farther west; and in Clément’s _Histoire de Colbert_,
Paris, 1874, vol. i. last chapter, there is an exposition of Colbert’s
colonial policy.
[Illustration]
Mr. Ben: Perley Poore was appointed by the Governor of Massachusetts,
in May, 1845, to select and transcribe such documents in the
French archives as he might find to bear upon the early history of
Massachusetts and the relations of New England with New France. His
report to the Governor, Dec. 28, 1847, accompanied by letters from John
G. Palfrey and Jared Sparks, telling the story of his work, constitutes
_Senate Doc., no. 9_ (1848), _Mass. Documents_. His transcripts,
covering papers from the discovery to 1780, fill ten volumes in the
Archives of the State, and are accompanied by two volumes of engraved
maps. Mr. Poore, under the auspices of the Massachusetts Historical
Society, and with the pledge of Colonel William P. Winchester to
assume the expense if necessary, had already a year earlier begun his
work. M. Davezac was at that time _chef des archives_ of the Marine,
and the confusion which Brodhead, the agent of New York, had earlier
found among the papers had disappeared under the care of the new
custodian.